Verbing Weirds Google

MoNickels writes "Back in January, the American Dialect Society voted the neologism "to google" as the most useful word of 2002. Now bring on the lawyers! Google's have sent a cease-and-desist letter to Paul McFedries, creator of the famous Word Spy site, demanding he remove google as a verb from his lexicon, or else. Frank Abate, an American editor for the Oxford English Dictionary, points out, however, that you can't claim proprietary rights to a verb." Update: 02/26 03:19 GMT by T : MoNickels writes with an update: "Frank Abate is not an editor of the OED, but he is a former editor of the New Oxford American Dictionary, both published by Oxford University Press." Thanks for the amendment!

Comments

Re:Trademarks and loss of trademarks

[renard]

*If* Google wants to keep their trademark, and there are good reasons for them to do so, then this is exactly what they need to do, whether you like it or not.

Apparently you didn't read the linked article (it's okay - not the first time on Slashdot, and won't be the last).

Verb usage is specifically exempted from US trademark law. So while it is true that Google would have to sue to prevent dilution of its trademark in the case of other "Google sites" or "Google services", when it comes to "googling" (esp. as in the current case, that is, dictionary, word, and usage tracking) they have no legal leg to stand on.

Google on, friends.

-renard