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Google to be Sued Over Name?
WK writes "Now that Google's IPO is running, the company is on the verge of being sued by the family of Professor Edward Kasner who invented the word 'Googol' to describe a very big number. The great-niece of Kasner who was 4 years old at the time her uncle died says that although Google has brought attention to the name, it has not brought attention to Kasner's work. Google was not using the concepts, but just capitalizing on the name."
Give me a frigging break! Had "google.com" sucked rocks you wouldn't be saying a word.
Now that google.com is just about to IPO you come crawling out of the wood work.
Go back home...
-mb
"googol" and "google.com" aren't even spelled the same! Gimme a break.
Isn't it interesting how you come to recognize posters based solely on their sigs???
Is everyone asleep - this lady is just greedy!
Move on, nothing to see here
...since it's not spelled the same, I guess I don't really see his case.
I regularly report MSN spam to the Hotmail admins.
Answer : write down a figure, then add a lot of zeros. *rimshot*
Thank you. I'll be here all week; don't forget to tip your server. Why not try the tuna?
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
I'm sorry but this is fucking retarded. Why would anyone think it would be okay to sue a company named Google for using a possible variant of the un-trademarked word Googol to describe a business that creates a data searching system? If there is a connection, why doesn't dictionary.com show one in the google definition? I could see perhaps a case if Google was called Googol, but this appears to be nothing more than a cash grab by a family of broke twits. Besides, the guy didn't invent the word! His 9 year old nephew did! From that link: The american mathematician Edward Kasner once asked his nine-year-old nephew to invent a name for a very large number, ten to the power of one hundred; and the boy called it a googol.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
He waited so looong to cash in cheaply into Google's prosperity. I, for one would declare him an "enemy combatant".
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
As the story goes, he was trying to come up with a good name for 10^100. He asked a little kid (some say his nephew) for a name, and the kid responded, "Call it a googol."
This is ridiculous, by the way. It's like the guy who came up with the word "milennium" suing LucasFilm because of Star Wars.
do you suppose she used google to find local legal advice?
The descendents of the inventors of arabic numerals are sueing all American businesses that used their IP without purchasing a license.
I think the niece has clearly indicated that money is more important than her uncle's name and reputation...
Some dead Greek guy's relative sues MPAA over use of the word 'Pi' as a movie title.
Roman mathematician's descendents sue Dr. Evil over the use of the word "Million"
Parker Brothers sued over the name 'Mr. Green' in the popular "Clue" game by the guy who invented that word.
This post brought to you by the number 3(TM), the letter P(TM) and the color yellow(TM).
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Oh please... give me a break! This is too much; As I type this I see the Google Banner at the top of the page. any moron who sues Google will have it in for himself because of the pissed off mobs...
No?
Ok, nothing to see here, move along.
How the fuck do you invent a word.
Be wary of any facts that confirm your opinion.
When we were little kids, we used to use the word "googol" that we'd heard from an older guy. We thought is way cooler than infinity...google/googol just sounds a hell of a lot cooler don't you think?
As for resolution of this problem, um damn, i think it'd be big of Google (company) to ackknowledge the man, but c'mon, suing over that? Get lost.
this is insane. why not just go after the makers of GOGGLES while you're at it too?
Google is searching through a very big number of webpages! Don't you all see? :)
Copyright, for a single word that is even spelled differently and a mathematical definition?
Trademark?
Certainly not a patent.
***Quis custodiet ipsos custodes***
than if I named my company "One Hundred Billion?" (raises pinky finger to corner of mouth)
Can you get a copyright/trademark on a number?
In C++, friends can touch each others private parts.
$8.95/mo web hosting
the stupidest thing I've ever heard of.
Shop smart, Shop S-Mart.
You know this shit is just getting out of hand. So, what now? These people just want money...plain and simple. Just freakin greed...next person that has my exact name I am suing. My folks invented it...it is mine. Freakin idiots.
Deserving got nothing to do with it.....shuffle
Her father invented a word for a number. There is no copyright. There is no trademark. We must now promote the work of the person who created the number? Why did he even bother? Google can just change to 10^100.
Jesus must be spinning in his grave....
So instead of having her father's name attached to a hugely successful web search engine she'd rather have it attached to some lawsuit that is going to make her family look like a bunch of assholes once the media gets wind of it.
Good one!
Danger, Tim Beauchamp! Danger!
As wel all know, potentially large sums of money can put a deceased loved one to rest. Why doesn't Google solve it creatively? Add a small line of text with a link that states what a googol is, with a tribute to Kasner, his work and his other achievements? The man and his work have been recognized, the family doesn't get a cent and everyone, except those greedy bastards, is happy.
Hate me!
Besides, no one has seen fit to defend the implied trademark (though registered? I'm thinking "not), so I doubt that the lawsuit gets anywhere... I suspect a couple of relatives saw Google's IPO numbers and decided to try at cashing in.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
IANAL, but wouldn't she have to show proof that the name googol had been copy written? and even it had been, how long until the copyright expires?
this is even worse than the coffee lady that sued mcdonalds. why is it that money seems to bring out the worst in people?
This, of course, raises deep philosophical questions about existence. Do things not listed on Google exist? Did anything exist before Google? Does Slashdot exist on a higher plane of being than I do because it yields more results?
Its really terrible what some people will do for money.. they have curiously abstained from even raising the issue until now, after the IPO, when they will get the most press and probably win the largest sum (if they win at all).
The only thing here is that both are used to represent/qualify large amounts of information. That's it. Regardless of whether or not she has a case, it feels like quite a reach.
Nothing but the finest in meaningless drivel
..though IANAL...
the use of G and an 'o' for each page of search results ending with the 'gle'
this may be a legitimate claim, but it is made completely weak by the circumstances (google's IPO namely) and to my knowledge the term "googol" is in most unabridged dictionaries defining a number of value one with one hundred zeros.
after 12 or 13 sides, regular polygons are named by their prefix and the 'gon' suffix. my favorite one? googolgon. transform!
SIGERR: laziness exceeds quota
Me thinks it's the other way around.. She is trying to get attention at the expense of Google..
No matter if her family has any trademarks/rights/whatever on the word Googol.
If she would win we could see a whole new kind of lawsuits instead of those frivolous suits about by people suing macdonalds because their food makes you fat etc...
"Now that Google's IPO is running, the company is on the verge of being sued by the family of Professor Edward Kasner who invented the word 'Googol' to describe a very big number.
In other news, the family of Professor Edward Kassner is being sued by the family of the great Russian playwright Nikolai Gogol.
In Soviet Russia... Google Gogols you!
What intellectual property law is Google violating? Surely the term "googol" wasn't trademarked, because trademarks (I believe) must refer to a company name or salable product. Copyright applies to the original published work, but not to a single word, and "google" isn't a verbatim copying of even that word. Patents and trade secrets obviously don't apply...
So where's the beef?
-3Suns
~~~~
The Revolution will be Slashdotted
I always thought that Google was a contraction of "Go ogle"
Could be wrong, but it if was, it would be a good defense.
over the frivolous use of the name Monopoly :-D
A little planning goes a long way...
Does anyone think its the slightest bit innovative to give a name to a very big number? I think this is just a publicity scam capitalizing on the coming IPO. Google's lawyers should have to trouble with this one.
I am a gringo!
Stick Men
If anyone had prior art on this, it is the guys who created Barney Google in 1919.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
This family follows the first law of people/human nature. The furthest people see is the first dollar sign.
There is nothing wrong with being gay. It's getting caught where the trouble lies.
At what point are people -- rational people-- going to get together and form a coalition to bring about a bloodless coup, lift the Democrats and Republicans from office, wipe clean the slate of stupid laws and ridiculous political/legal traditions, form a new American government starting from the foundation of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and finally make it so that bullshit like this is the exception rather than the norm? Good God, the nation's gone absolutely ape-shit. When's the revolution, and how can it be brought about without further bloodshed? Ridiculous lawsuits like this are just a symptom of how detached from reality the US has gotten.
I'm good and sick of this "lawyerocracy" we have here. I'd love to see a "geekocracy".
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
The first time I heard the term googol was in a Peanuts cartoon when I was about 8 yrs old (which is a lot longer ago than it used to be...). I think it was Linus that was talking about it.
You don't see Parket Brothers suing Microsoft of the word "Monopoly".
But seriously, our society is WAY WAY WAY too litigious and opportunistic for anyone's good. On what grounds based in reality does the family of the man who invented the word "Googol" have to the Internet search engine company?
Google even has it's own dictionary entry - two actually, V and N
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
Its interesting to me, how when a company more fully enters the American corporate arena, silly stuff like this starts to surface. Google increases in popularity and notoriety, and all of a sudden we have weiners like this suing them for their name, when the term "Googol" isnt even trademarked, nor is it the same as "Google". Google increases in popularity and notoriety, and we have Microsoft entering the fray to try and beat them out of the market, by manipulating their OS monopoly. Its interesting how Western civilization has evolved into the "sue everyone and reap the benefits" mindset. A thousand years ago, cavemen would have ran away from a falling boulder; today, the same person would run into it headfirst screaming "CHA-CHING!!". Little stories like these, are an interesting insight into how corporate America works. Keep an eye on Googles continuing ascent in the business world, and see how many more of these ridiculous lawsuits crop up.
I'm currently studying to become a mathematician; one of the reasons is that the mathematical community has avoided the intellectual-property nonsense that other fields have embraced. Mathematical research is published in public journals and the only sort of "royalty" is attribution; concepts in mathematical papers are not patented and nobody is ever charged for using them. This was probably the deciding factor in my choice between mathematics and computer science -- the sort of behavior that Microsoft and other large companies display is immature, inethical, and all in all inexcusable.
If I recall correctly, I've read an article elsewhere which insinuated that Mr. Kasner's niece is a professional intellectual property litigator of the shadiest manner -- the sort that tries to slip through patents with established prior art and then sue the original inventors. I could be wrong, of course; I've been reading a lot of stuff about the horrendously broken United States IP system and I may be confused.
I used to read Caltizzle. I was a lot cooler than you.
Meanwhile, the Kasner family suddenly gained $50 million, from a "family friend."
According to the original article in the Baltimore Sun, the family hasn't decided to sue yet. They probably know that they don't really have a case. 'sides, all they want is to be insiders for the IPO, atm, not get zillions in punitive damages or trademark-violation damages. Of course, this could all change if they don't get the chance to be insiders for the IPO.
So no, this doesn't really seem like a case of folks suing google 'cause they are violating the common-law trademark rights of the 4-year old who came up with "googol"...yet.
This is nothing but predatory practice on the part of some lawyers who discovered (belatedly) that Google has the money and maybe they can take some of it. Trademarks are almost always product-specific. So you can have a newspaper named "Onion" and a nightclub named "The Onion" and no infringement exists. How can anyone expect to retain all rights to the word "googol" (or anything that sounds like "googol")? There are too damn many lawyers in the world.
...stupid... frivilous... lawsuits... urge to kill... RISING...
"In 1955 he died and much later a search engine called Google was born. His relatives claim that Kasner must be spinning in his grave. They believe Google has gained financially at their expense and they want to become IPO insiders to put his soul to rest."
YOU GOTTA BE FRIGGIN' KIDDING ME!! They 'want to become IPO insiders to put his soul to rest???' That has to be the LAMEST reason for a lawsuit in the history of lawsuits! (right next to copyright infringement of a certain OS kernel w/o actually SAYING what it is or spilling hot coffee on one's self and successfully sueing BECAUSE of it...)
I need a drink...
for a 10^100 money-grubbing bitch:
;-)
FUCK YOU.
This shuold be Google's answer for this suit as well as the judge's who might see the case. I personally would feel a great swell of pride if they would publish it on their front page
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
How can you invent a word?
Maybe I should legally change my name to Mike Rowe, and buy a domain conveying that I make software.
Yeah, sure this makes sense...
I'm always confusing the search engine, with the mathematical concept.
How about King Features Syndicate suing Google instead. At least their character is spelled the same (Barney Google), had been around since 1919 and appeared on USPS stamps starting in 1995, in time for those evil Google search engine folks to cash in on Barney's famous name!
Barney Google - page down a bit.
See: http://www.cricketnext.com/coaching/coachbowling/g oogly.htm
Second:
-Motley fool web site
There's several rulings about names that ARE trademarked "falling" into public domain, and it's basically, you're a victim of your own success. Since the word Googol was used as a mathematical term, and has no doubt been used in numerous papers, discussions, etc., I have little belief that this suit would succeed, since the term has definitely been in the public domain for a long time.
That being said, it would be nice if the Google folks maybe put up some of that IPO money to help kids learn math, or something....
Google's ... being sued by the family of Professor Edward Kasner
In a related story, God is suing the Kasner family claiming he originally came up with the concept of them....
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
This is really getting way out of hand now, opps better sue me, I think someone else already posted that. ;-)
Really, the Americanism of the world, and it litigous nature is really starting to piss the common person off.
There needs to be some serious tightening up of the laws on sueing in all countries to stop this and other frivoulus law suits from continuing to bear their ugly heads.
Third of Nine
Well, um, yes.
Intel found this out to their cost when clone 486 chips came out. On attempting to sue Cyrix et al, they were unable to prevent them from using the number names. Hence the move to the (trademarked) brand name "Pentium".
You have... got... to... be... kidding.
Not only are the names not spelled the same, they aren't even friggin' pronounced the same way!
What's next, is the estate of John Wheeler going to sue MAPS over the term "black hole"?
Hey, maybe Stephen Hawking should sue babyuniverse.com for using his expression.
And whoever coined the expression "quantum leap" sure has something to sue over. That's been used everywhere from car commercials to science fiction TV shows.
You know who would love this? John Stossel at ABC. I bet he'd do a "Gimme a Break" segment on it.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
There's a
<a href="">litigious bastards</a>
Googlebomb that would be particularly amusing.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
(Note: the links above may or may not work, here is the TESS (Trademark Electronic Search System) page where you can enter the search terms):j 6biv.1.1
http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=tess&state=
Only in America. And I mean this quite literally.
Microsoft is the easy to mention.
Apple and patent-fest 2004 should also float to the top. And yet... doesn't.
tsk tsk
I tend to agree with the sentiment.
But think about this: assume the company was named "Mickey Mouse Search" or "Star Trek Search" or "Frodo Search", do you think that Disney or WB or whoever wouldn't be able to object? Companies do manage to claim characters and terms from their writings as their intellectual property.
I still think this claim should get turned down, but then I also think that companies should not be able to claim character names, characters, or plot lines as their property.
Talk about trying to cash in on success! I doubt they have a legal leg to stand on. To my knowledge googol wasn't trademarked. So it's not like he was trying to restrict use of the term. In fact, since an effort was made to get it into the general mathematical parlance, pretty much the opposite is true.
Hey, my name is Scott Charlie Orth. i've been around long before a certain company. This gives me an idea...
Cha-ching!
_______
2B1ASK1
What about other word derived terms? Trillian? Is whoever can prove a DNA link to the person who first uttered "million" , "billion", etc going to sue people for refering to someone as a "millionaire"? Or the governments of the world for issuing budgets in billions and trillions?
I may be wrong, and I suppose I shouldn't trust evil Google to check, but I thought the actual name for the number was a "googleplex"? And why aren't they going after GooglePlex Media?
Google is near and dear to a lot of nerds' hearts, mine included. One of my favorite profs in college was a good friend of Brin, and got me started using Google when the whole thing was still beta.
It's almost as bad as a huge company suing somebody cos' their product's name sounds a bit like a word commonly used to describe a hole in a wall.
Oh, and then re-suing them when they change their name because they haven't changed it enough.
I vote for a law that says that anyone bringing a spurious lawsuit should automatically be fined the amount they asked for...
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
Who's Billy DeBeck, you ask? Why, just the guy who created the comic strip character Barney Google (you know, the guy with the "goo-goo-googly eyes"?!) and King Features Syndicate for distributing the cartoon for the past EIGHTY-FIVE YEARS (which, by the way, doesn't predate Mr. Kastner but which DOES predate the coining of the word "googol" by at least a decade.)
It's this kind of frivolous abuse of the courts that keeps real and legitimate cases that might bring about real reforms and improvements from being effective (or even successful.)
This space intentionally left (almost) blank.
I suspect if Microsoft is able to bully Lindows into changing its name to Linspire, that this woman will be able to extract some sort of payoff from Google just to shut the **ck up. :(
I don't know if there is any precedence for this, but I think it's a safe assumption that numbers, no matter who coined the phrase/word, should be public domain.
If Google is a play on a 'common' word (Googol), then it's a valid trademark and the challenging lawsuit should be debunked.
Legally, shouldn't that hold up? Given that general assumptions by the majority of the population and with no precedence, I can't see why it wouldn't.
Mind you, it might be different for different countries. I'm Canadian and Bayer managed to keep its Aspirin trademark here while it lost it to general usage in the U.S..
The very first statement in Google's corporate information pays a tribute to the author who coined the term and mentions clearly that it is a play on the word googol
:-p... or maybe they are just a bunch of lusers taking a shot at the money!
Whatever Kasner was, he certainly wasn't of breeding stock - look what he passed on to his family
http://efil.blogspot.com/
When my kid was about 1 she said goo goo googel. Maybe I'll just try copyright all the mumbling speech of hers when she was a baby. Please do not name a company/website ya ya ya or ba ba ba or ma ma ma. Thank you, Lou Sir
The standard for trademark is confusion in the marketplace. I.e., will consumers be confused about the similarities in the names. E.g., I could legally open an automobile repair facility called McDonalds because consumers would not confuse crappy food with having your car repaired.
From what I gather, Kasner's family has absolutely no business from which consumers could get confused. They're essentially trying to trademark a word merely because a former family member came up with it. That's not the law. Not only will this case get kicked out, the family will be sanctioned for bringing it.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Great googlymoogly batman! This ranks (pun intended) right up there with the SCO case for most blatant act of money grabbing i"ve seen in a while. I think they even beat out MS and the MPAA/RIAA!
His relatives claim that Kasner must be spinning in his grave.
i'll bet he is - over what they're doing, not over google paying tribute to the name he invented.
It's time that someone stops the insanity!
Unchecked, numbers like 6, 323, 929, 330, 545 and 760 are fair game!
Next thing you know they'll be using a variant of infinity as a car brand.
Never attribute to stupidity what can be construed as a monopoly preservation tactic.
From Toonopedia:
The name "Barney Google" is familiar to anyone who ever watched a TV retrospective of comic strips -- he's the guy with the "goo-goo-googly eyes" in the 1923 Billy Rose song they always play in such retrospectives. Many newspapers use his name in the title of one of their comic strips. And in 1995, he was honored by the U.S. Postal Service in its "Comic Strip Classics" series of commemorative stamps.
I think Billy DeBeck, creator of the strip, has a better claim to prior art than the nephew.
opportunity to operate as insiders for the IPO
I thought the point of the Google dutch auction was to reduce/eliminate the effect of IPO insiders. Normally at IPO the brokerage sets an artificially low price for the IPO that insiders can buy in at. When the stock starts trading then the market sets a realistic price (normally way higher; google for Cobalt, for example) so the insiders can cash in on opening day. With the dutch auction you either have shares or not, AFAICT there's no advantage to being an insider.
Since there's no advantage to being an insider, then it seems to me that the Kasner family hs no clue as to what's happeing with the IPO. That's seems to be a reasonable assumption since they're stupid enough to sue over this.
Mickey Mouse is a brand name and Disney goes to great links to protect that. Same with Star Trek and Frodo. Googol, on the other hand, is a word. It has never been associated with any brand or trademark this family owns or derives income from.
This is nothing more than a bullshit land grab by theives. Period. They are trying to steal from Google and I wonder what snake put them up to it if they hadn't come up with it themselves...absolute crap.
Google is just going to redirect all searches from the ligitious bastards to this money hungry bitch. Does this also mean that when gameshows ask questions about the googol that they are going to get sued? I saw a program about the english version of "weekend millionaires" when someone cheated and won a meeeeeeeeellion dollars from a googol related answer. Does that mean she can sue the pants off of that guy? (who cheated and got shit on by everybody, and rightly so).
Will wank off Linus Torvalds for fame.
Does that mean that every number is someone's Intellectual Property,
-Should Neo be sued for being "The One"?
-How about Bo Derek, she's a "10".
-Will we have to put a little "tm" at the end of races like the Daytona 500?
-How about Bush's 1000 point of light, was that used with permission?
-Did the Million Man March pay royalties?
-I don't recall the Six Million Dollar Man having that problem.
-Carl Sagen never used quotes when he said "Billions and Billions of stars in the Cosmos"
(the only bigger number I know is the National Debt)
In Soviet Russia, numbers have a trademark on YOU(TM)!
... (wait, isn't there a trademark on "time"?)
All your numbers are belong to us.
You have no chance to compute.
Make your
...to say:
Dear Fans,
The people living at 123 Street, City, ST USA are bringing a frivolous lawsuit against us because our name sounds like a NAME FOR A NUMBER that their ancestor came up with.
Isn't that fucking stupid, or what? Chances are, these people just want to settle for a large amount of money.
If you like Google and wish to support us, it wouldn't hurt if these people were to say... turn up missing? We helped you with your many searches, so now the favor must be returned.
Whadda ya say?
Love,
Google Team
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
I can't wait to see how these folks' lawyers quantify losses at Google's hands, or how Google's registered trademark causes confusion with the customers of the word "googol."
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
...and rename the site "butthead great-niece of some math professor."
--- Ban humanity.
Or the creator or family of the creator of barney Google have to say? After all, the name is even spelled the same in this case. And which came first, the googol or the Googles?
I don't subscribe to RMS's GNUtopian vision.
It's not trademark law. The family never trademarked the term "Googol." It's not copyright law, or else a whole lot of mathematics textbooks are in trouble. For once it's not Patent law.
Is there even a realm of law that would cover such a thing?
Not that I would trust the Inqirer to report the facts without mangling them horribly...
The ______ Agenda
If he makes a turn for every access to Google... He must be spinning VERY VERY fast!
2020, unless the shrub retains office (note the absence of the word reelected). If he retains office, revolution will likely be accelerated.
Google uses Linux, so are undoubtedly a bunch of Intellectual Property thieves.
There is a battle going on about Intellectual Property Rights in the Internet Age. The GPL is unconstitutional, and words and variants of words belong to their inventor. This much is very clear from Eldred v Ashcroft.
I think the family should sue for $1,000,000,000 $3,000,000,0000 $5,000,000,000.
They should also demand that Google certify that they are not using Linux or other SCO intellectual property without a SCO license.
Yours insincerely,
Darl McBride
P.S. anybody want to buy our stock?
That niece probably learned her first math from this book....
So, why doesn't she want a piece of the pie of www.googol.com? Because that pie is to small maybe?????
Browsers shouldn't have a back button!! It's all about going forward...
Who wants to bet that a lawyer approached the family and coerced them to sue. He looking at getting a big cut of any settlement, and all he had to do was write a few letters.
But the name of a number is MENT to be used in the public domain. I don't think anyone can put a copyright on the alphanumeric tag for a 1 followed by 9 zeros (1,000,000,000 also known as a billion). Or for that matter, why isn't Infinity car company, Infinity audio, etc being sued for using the term INFINITY??
A googolplex is a googol squared.
Dude, I was at patent-fest '04 and it totally rocked! I'm gonna go do a keg-stand now!
WOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
There's also a lawsuit against Microsoft in progress by Merrium-Webster, citing that both "micro" and "soft" are used in their dictionary and that Bill Gates has no right to capitalize on words in the English language without their explicit permission.
the founders of Google have "admitted" that they misspelled googol when coming up with the name. They said in TV interviews "We didn't have the spell checker working back then." However, it seems to me googol should be in the public domain, and Google has taken on a life of its own that has nothing to do with the definition of a googol.
Not exactly. A googol squared would be 10^200; a googolplex, however, is 10^(googol), which is several orders of magnitude larger.
I used to read Caltizzle. I was a lot cooler than you.
Let me get this straight: 60 years ago a mathematician used a different word that's not spelled the same but sounds a bit like google when spoken -- although I'd like the see a pronunciation key for googol -- and now they're claiming that google got their name by drawing on the inifinte wisdom of the bloke the just kinda pulled a word out of his ass to represent 'one million gajillion billions'.
What I want to know is how poor of mathematician was this guy that his crowning contribution to math was the word 'googol'? Or better yet, how incredibly stupid is the son to think his dad's crowning contribution to math is the word 'googol'?
As an aside, do they think it could possibly be the case that google got its name from other words... like maybe:
"go" -- 'to begin an action or motion' M-W
"ogle" -- 'to look at especially with greedy or interested attention' M-W
Hmmm... 'to start looking with interested attention'? That's just silly... of course they got the word from 'one million gajillion billions'.
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
he named a fucking number.... o_0 damn, i guess that is considered work now. and if it is the name of a number, it can't be copyrighted. i mean, is thousand.com going to be sued? how about billion.com? i hope kanser reads this, or someone mentions this to him, because he is an idiot who got a kid to name a really big number. whoop de fucking doo. give this guy the Nobel >_
kleenex....
I thought 'Google' was just 'go ogle' with the blankspace removed. I mean - at least in the earlier days, whatever you searched for, you got more than enough porn links in the search results.
That's like someone with the last name "McDonald" trying to sue McDonalds just because their Great Grandmother cooked up a decent hamburger.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
Of course, you shouldn't be able to copyright a number but that's another issue.
It seems that all google needs to do is rewrite it's history to claim a root in the words googley and gawk. It makes sence that as search engine that people use to LOOK for things on the internet would be named with a word with those two etymological roots.
Eat at Joe's.
Donald Knuth invented the concept of big-theta and big-omega notation not that long ago for describing time efficiencies. Seems that he'd be in for a lot of money if this google IP nonsense had any merit. BTW, does anyone remember MS-glef(tm)?
Face it. I've had many ideas that are potentially profitable (I thought about port knocking already a few years ago) but if I don't have it in me to make the money i have to find people who do or STFU and stop whining.
Privacy is terrorism.
I had no idea "Google" was a play on the word 'googol'. I always assumed it referred to "google", as in "googly eyes"; you know, LOOKING at something. My Grandma is prior art -- she would tell me "don't be googling" the young ladies.
Heh. Thanks to modern technology, 99.9% of us use the internet to Google for young ladies -- while our grandmas all think we're researching our stock portfolios.
I'm not normally an irrational zealous dickhead, but I figure "When in Rome..."
...and wait until the King Features Syndicate and/or the heirs of Billy Rose start knocking at the door. The comic strip was created by Billy DeBeck in 1919, so I guess maybe they're in the clear until the next copyright-extension law gets passed--although the comic strip still exists, as "Snuffy Smith." The song is later than that and is probably still under copyright. You all know it, right?
Right?
Baaaaaaaarney Google!
With the goo-goo-googley eyes!
Baaaaaaaarney Google!
Had a wife three times his size!
She sued Barney for divorce--
Now he's living with his horse--
Baaaaaaaarney Google!
With the goo-goo-googley eyes!
Well, it WAS a big hit. A long time ago.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Heck, sounds the same. Got the g's and the o's.... Does that mean I have to pay $699 for this dvd!?
http://dictionary.cambridge.org [QUOTE] goggle verb [I] INFORMAL to look with the eyes wide open because you are surprised: The cathedral was full of goggling tourists goggle-eyed adjective INFORMAL If someone is goggle-eyed, their eyes are very wide open, usually because of surprise. [/QUOTE] I was calling people "google-eyed freaks" back in the 80s, it's a fairly common insult here in Blighty.
the easiest way to define "frivolous lawsuit" and be shown examples of such.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
If they really cared about the word "googol" then they should be going after googol.com, but I guess they figure they would not get as much money from the guy who runs it. It is also very funny what some people consider an invention.
...I presume that the descendants of Billy DeBeck, creator of Barney Google, will sue them both.
I fully expect to be hearing from the administrators of Lewis Carroll's estate regarding my website (not quite as well-trafficked as Google and I'm not about to IPO, but it's the principle of the thing, surely?) - http://uffish.net.
After all, Carroll coined the word 'uffish' in Jabberwocky, and I'm using it without permission. No fair! I wanna lawsuit too!
and Google is a new word, an honorific of googol.
Or as SCO would say, an unauthorized derivative and a clear case of non-literal copying.
There is no case here. A new word was invented SPECIFICALLY TO AVOID the issue of trademarking an existing word. It's done all the time. Get over it.
--
Alive and kicking in a VM
I always thought it was for 'go ogle'.
Lets count, who here knew of the word "Googol" prior to this posting?
I would guess quite a lot, as Carl Sagan mentioned it in his "Cosmos" pop.sci. series.
And show me a real (western) geek, of the appropriate age, which did NOT see "Cosmos". Maybe not a zero-measure set, but quite close
Working for necessity's mother.
So now we can't use words in the dictionary to name something? Maybe the inventor(s) of the prefix tele or micro; or the inventor(s) of the suffix soft will go around suing people because they used prefixes/suffixes without giving credit to the person who coined the term.
-illumina+us "I put on my robe and wizard hat..."
The makers of Sesame Street announce they are joining the action on behalf of the letters 'E', 'G', 'L' and 'O'.
No, I'm sure he would be proud.
Actually the word was never trademarked, and Google is a bit different from Googol/Googolplex.
You mean trademark, not copyright.
Is there a trademark here that's being infringed? Is it a copyrighted word? If neither of these is true, on what grounds could she possibly win a lawsuit? (Other than just suing and hoping for a fat settlement.)
This is like the decendents of Albert Einstein suing Einstein's Bagels.
If you read the IPO papers you will see that the guys at google are trying their hardest to _not_ have the kind of pump and dump IPO that you saw in the dot com craze. If I had cause to sue to be a part of an IPO I wouldn't bother to get in on this one.
-Whether you can copyright something or not is partially determined by its complexity/length. You cannot copyright a word, but you can copyright a book, which is just a collection of words. Similarly, you can't copyright "1001", but you can copyright a piece of software even though fundamentally it's just a long-ass binary string.
Member of Orkut? Annoyed with spam?
Idiots.
They keep saying they want to operate as "Insiders" at the IPO, but they don't realize it's a Dutch Auction IPO. There are no insiders... nobody can buy the stock below the price initially set by the auction and everyone is welcome to put in a bid and hopefully their bid will be at or above the number the stock goes on sale for. Everybody is an insider. I hope they sue so Google's lawyers can laugh at them.
And anyway, can you even sue someone for co-opting a math term? It would be like suing over C++ because it's got those addition signs thrown in there without giving credit to Saffius Addius, the creator of the symbol.
--
RumorsDaily
how about.... the search engine formaly known as google
But if they win this one, then the Children's Television Workshop should try and get royalties for all the letters of the alphabet since they had close ties to all the letters of the alphabet. "This program has been brought to you by the letter S"
Un-news
Google clearly has capitalized on the name Google, and should be happy to share some of its irrational success by benefitting the people from which it has benefitted.
Yes - they could have used a different name - but they chose this man, his work, and his word to christen their enterprize.
Decency recommends that they show some loyal tribute in return.
I don't know for how much she is asking - but the complaint to some extent looks to raise the question of the man's work into - Very large numbers.
Google should provide the world with a sincere understaning of the root of their title and give credit if credit is due to the man who invisioned the concept (perhaps of inordinant scaleability)?.
I don't know - but that's the point - Google should be a place where among other things people can find out the meaning of the word Google.
(Can I respond try google and get the +5 funny mod myself)
If they need to go to court to figure out a way of respecting their namesake - they should.
AIK
Also....great-niece? WTF? That's a bit of seperation there. Does his granddaughter not care, yet granddaughter's second/third cousin decided she should sue? Honestly people....
If someone was getting upset about the commercial use of GOOGLE you'd think that it would be the heirs of Billy Rose or the lawyers at King Features. After all, Barney Google could well have been the inspiration for the search engine...couldn't he?
Hey, that's a great idea! I'll claim ownership of the number 999.99 - Every time someone's is charged that exact sum, the bank owes me 50 for copyright violation on their statement.
I wonder if www.1000000000 0000000000 0000000000 0000000000 0000000000 0000000000 0000000000 0000000000 0000000000 0000000000.com is available?
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
To get this clear in my head,
A mathmatician created the word Googol to represent a fantasticly huge number a very long time ago.
Prior to that invention a comic artist created a character called Barny Google with "Googly eyes" suggesting even ferther prior art.
But Google got it's name not from the comic character or the phrase "Googly eyes" but from the mathmaticians refrence we know this becouse Google.com sighted him as the insperation for the name.
Now that they are on the verge of IPO someone is suing becouse Google.com has NOT given recognition and has right to that same becouse they got the name from him we know becouse Google HAS given recognition. You see where I'm going with this?
Copyright? On a single word? I don't think so.
Besides the copyright would have expired a very long time ago.
Trademark? Nope. Not applicable.
Patent? We've seen some crazy applications of patent law but that's all been in recent (the last 20 years) times.
You can't own a stupid word. You can't "invent" a stupid word.
Now I challange Peri Fleisher to discuss this with out first sighting the legacy of each and every word....
Of course it's impossable becouse with every sitation you have more words and now must do more sitations.
I present my new book based on the Peri Fleisher idea of giving credit to the person who coins the word.
It starts with.
I.
And then sites who coined the word and then starts sighting who coinned the words used in that sitation and so on.
The book is 500 pages thick but outside the Peri Fleisher recomended sitations is the single word "I".
That is presumming I have a time scanner becouse I sereously doupt anyone even knows who first coinned over 90% of the english slanguage. However we can track down from what language each word was taken.
Now THIS is the real reason it's called "Microsoft".. Becouse NOBODY in there right mind would ever lay clame to inventing that word no matter how much money is on the line.
I don't actually exist.
It is not her father; it is her great uncle, who died when she was 4 years old.
Hasn't even gone IPO yet, but some guy was selling google stock until he got busted. How stupid are people?
I knew it! ::rollseyes::)
Instead of naming themselves after the word Googol to describe a 1 followed by a 100 zeroes, they should've played it safe and called themselved "Centamillion!" (w/o the exclamation point though, b/c we all know that Yahoo! owns that piece of puncuation
because of the companies that Google has sued for using Google in their game. What goes around comes around, MUTHA FUCKAS.
It's once they have over 500 shareholders and a net worth of over 10 million they have to file 10-Q's, etc with the SEC. They don't have to go public. For example you can have a private held company worth 10 billion, just not more than 500 shareholders or you'll have to file SEC quarterly/annual documents which eliminates the benefit of being privately held.
Ridiculous.
If I came up with the name "millyon" and then got sued by the descendants of the person who first coined the term "million"....
Get a life. Is this descendant perhaps not too successful?
NetNewsWire into Yojimbo!
let me get this straight... ...google is giving the kasners too much attention, but it is only profitting...
so to resolve this, the family wants to gain more attention (through a high-profile legal battle) and more profit (civil suit cash dollaz) ?
[ you and I are ugly ]
Main Entry: googol
Pronunciation: 'gü-"gol
Function: noun
Etymology: coined by Milton Sirotta born about 1929 nephew of Edward Kasner died 1955 American mathematician
: the figure 1 followed by 100 zeroes equal to 10^100
Search for Google = No Entry Found.
My (non) legal argument. They are not the same words therfore no case.
besides, can't the family even get it right about who invented the word?
It's true that someone's trying to capitalize on the name but it isn't Google.
"She[Peri Fleisher] said that although Google has bought attention to the name, it has not bought attention to Kasner's work. Google was not using the concepts, but just capitalising on the name, she said. And who is the heir to Kasner's work? Step forward Fleisher's son, who has the rights to the book."
"She said she had written to Google but it had never replied. She said that Google is playing off that number and not compensating them even a little bit. Ethically, it could have been more giving. She does not want cash just the opportunity to operate as insiders for the IPO."
A Googleplex is a 1 with a Googol zeros after it.
Technoli
Isaac Asimov wrote a book (in the sixties i belive) called, "Add a dimension", in which he talk about the googol, googolplex, and other funky numbers... Quite a funny read.... /T
Warning: This sig contains a small bug. ==> *
Sueing google?
That sounds like searching for trouble!
Tip the server??? Do you know how much these rackmounts cost!!!
You should have bought blades, dude! Already tipped. :-)
zWhat would an EWOULDBLOCK block, if an EWOULDBLOCK could block would? -- me
If you ever pull a stupid stunt in my name like this I will haunt your butt for the rest of your lives.
I'm sure after a few years in the afterlife I'll learn some pritty perverted stuff to use on those who screw with people who use stuff I create.
I frigen don't want my desendents making money exploting people who use my stuff. I want people to use my stuff. The notion that anyone other than me has any right to clame what I've created is a bunch of flamming stinky stuff.
Don't ever say your putting my soul to rest while extorting money from a truely inventive person.
For those who think this sort of action is ok I have some words for you...
Very choice words.
A googol of choice words.
I don't actually exist.
From google.com:x .html
http://www.google.com/corporate/inde
What's a Google?
"Googol" is the mathematical term for a 1 followed by 100 zeros. The term was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner, and was popularized in the book, "Mathematics and the Imagination" by Kasner and James Newman. Google's play on the term reflects the company's mission to organize the immense amount of information available on the web.
The answer to these and all of your questions is 42.
If those things land on you, it hurts...
I've written this breakthrough program which calculates the digits of the googolplex, but now I'm afraid of being prosecuted under the DMCA for copyright infringement. Please help!
int main(int argc, char **argv) {
printf("1");
while (1)
printf(",000");
}
-braddock gaskill
for x in com net org biz;
.de.
do
ping googol.$x && sue --with-sco-tacticts
done
Also works for a bunch of country suffixes, like
I read some time ago that the australian comedian Yahoo Serious was sueing yahoo.com for the same reasons. Anybody got a clue as to where that stands?
Surely, we must first point out the incalculable advantages of having a geekocracy. Our entire lives will be changed! Think of what will be different:
E.g., I could legally open an automobile repair facility called McDonalds because consumers would not confuse crappy food with having your car repaired.
VERY bad example.
Please research "McSleep Inn".
This is not my sig.
The heirs to the man who coined the mathematical term "thousand" are suing the publishers of a book named "One Thousand and a Night".
The spokesman representing the heirs said in a press conference: "The publishers of this book, sure brought lots of attention to the word that was invented some time ago, but the publishers have failed to give credits to the true inventor of the word. We have no other option than to sue!"
"Civis Europaeus sum!"
The spelling is different. Is there even any evidence that "Google" was derived from "googol?" I suggest it derives from the Russian author Nikolai Gogol. If the Google people already said otherwise, they were smoking crack. Yeah, that's it.
> concepts in mathematical papers are not patented
> and nobody is ever charged for using them.
Uh, that's because nobody ever uses them.
I use the word nonillion as my nick here on /. but since I don't use it for profit or name recognition I should be safe. For those who don't know, a nonillion is 10^30th. I discovered this name back when I was running windows 3.11 and installed some text to speech software that came with my Sound Blaster MCD sound card. I started to type random numbers in the dialog window to see how it was pronounced. It was quite funny and interesting hearing such number places as "septendecillion", "octillion" and "novemdecillion".
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
This dude is just dumb. Google and googole (or whatever) and the comparison thereof in name is just stupid. The comparison of a googoleplex (or whatever) and a search engine, even in name is assinine.
The passing off law is why advertisers have to pay sports people for showing them endorsing a product. Keeping in mind that these days the sponsorship fees cost more than the manufacturing cost, there must have been some precedent set for companies to cough up.
A search on "Google" at Merriam-Webster Onlinen ary&va=google&x=0&y=0
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictio
yields no definitions, but only suggestions for possible correct spellings:
- goggle
- guggle
- googol
- gaggle
- Gogol
- goggled
- gulag
- goggle-eye
- guggled
- goggler
Notice that "googol" was found in this dictionary as being a word, but "google" wasn't.Merriam-Webster Online also offers alternate forms/spellings with word definitions. Such was not the case with "googol". "Google" was not offered as an alternative spelling of "googol".
Merriam-Webster Online also offers a thesaurus service. Searching on "googol" yields no results. Searching on "google" yields about 10.....none of them "googol".
Given all of this I think there is an excellent chance that "googol" and "google" are 2 distinct words.
IMHO, unless some enterprising person digs deeper to find a contradictory reference I would say this person has no case and her lawyer is too lazy to open a dictionary.
Steve
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/gogol.htm
What goes around, comes around. I hope you lose, and learn a lesson here, Google.
The name Quark is trademarked. Do they acknowledge either Murray Gell-Mann or James Joyce?... (Maybe another law suit is looming ;)
What and the "great-niece of Kasner" isnt capitalising on someone elses work whos dead now?? 4 years old!? fuck off you greedy bitch.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Since Kasner did not invent the term, and since he probably did not compensate his nephew for using it, I do not see how his heirs have standing to sue. If anyone should sue, it would be the nephew, and he should be suing Kasner's heirs for Kasner's use of the term without permission (at the time, the nephew was a minor, and so was not competent to give permission).
Once you start talking about digital artworks, it gets harder to make the argument that it exists a priori just because all digital art can be mapped onto the natural numbers. For one, a string of bits could represent a theoretically infinite number of different digital artworks, depending on how you interpret that string of bits. Is it a picture? Is it compressed audio? Are you supposed to just look at the bits and admire their sublime bit-ness?
So it would seem that the art isn't just the number, it's also in the technique for interpreting the number - which isn't in the number. (And can't be in the number, because how would you interpret the portion of the number that tells you how to interpret the number?) If you don't have this technique (and know that you need to apply it), the number is just a number, and nothing else.
So unless you can successfully find a way to mechanically generate all possible ways to interpret this data, I'm not sure you'll be all that successful in getting this stuff into the public domain.
I could have sworn they were named after this guy.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
If you're going to sue them for the name, might as well take their server farm too. Boy, wouldn't that be a sweet deal. Protien folding here I come.
Alcohol & calculus don't mix. Never drink & derive.
It's a number. You can't trademark or copyright or patent a number.
It's not even spelled the same way! At least google didn't go the 80's hair metal way and spell it "gügyl".
Google connotes in my own mind oogle, which means to "look". If you look through a googol (not that we're anywhere close to that, yet) data resources for a bit of information, what other word better describes that than "googling"?
The family hasn't done anything to contribute to the success of Google the business entity.
This is a totally frivolous, bogus lawsuit. I hope the plaintiffs fall flat on their faces.
Google is a good, fun to say name that doesn't sound evil or harmful or too serious. The name "google" gives me a happy feeling.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Y'know it used to be you joined a dotcom to become rich... but that is soooo 90s. Now you just find something stupid and sue over it.
In other news... a small farm in Washington State is suing Steve Jobs over his company. As this farm has been growing apples, namely the macintosh variety for over 75years.
I'm just jealous that I haven't come up with something to sue over.
Hmm... I've been using unix for a long time... maybe I could sue Slashdot b/c i've had root longer than this board has been around?
They do nothing! NOTHING!!
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
and bring the family fortune to net zero
after all the law expenses that family can
afford. Theyll last less than 2 weeks in court.
Do it Pronto (c) and quit Dawdling (c)
Im just googling (c) like a baby to see
this case go down!
This just in,
Several South American Countries are suing Amazon.com over the use of the name of their Rain Forest.
Washed up funnyman Yahoo Serious is suing Yahoo for use of his name.
Give me a break.
Simply making up a word, or even publishing it, doesn't permit you to prevent others from using it in whatever fashion they want. A single word is not copyrightable, so without trademark (or servicemark) protection, there's not much value in a single word or term.
Digital art is therefore discovery of interesting natural numbers that when interpreted using a particular format can be beheld for their aesthetic or functional aspects.
Obviously given limitless conceivable formats any number can be considered to represent any artwork. However, the fact remains that for any digital artwork and a specific format there exists a corresponding natural number that represents that artwork.
The creator or discoverer of an artwork withholds the details of the format and the natural number until they can assure attribution or remuneration.
So, yes, while a digital artwork is a number, a number is only a digital artwork if it is accompanied by knowledge of its format.
Nevertheless, requiring that all natural numbers belong to the public domain would be no bad thing.
Thus intellectual property only exists where a particularly interesting/useful number+format is secret (known only to the discoverer). Once published, it's free.
Sale of art/secrets is thus where the revenue comes in, and mechanisms such as The Digital Art Auction
are ideal to sell such secrets to large numbers of customers simultaneously.
Greedy opportunistic parasite
Hope google countersues for defamation and he goes down. And stuff.
Reminds me of the Vanilla Ice / Queen thing where he sung his dings on TV..."No no no ours goes ding ding ding ding ding ding ding....see the difference?"
In other news, the Kasner family also contemplating lawsuits against cricketers who earn fame bowling leg break googley bowler Shane Warne and Anil Kumble
apologies to non-cricket loving folks and moderators
Now that I'm perplexed by this sniveling cashin, I've got a C&D letter of my own!
--
make install -not war
this guy is in serious trouble!!!!
I came up with the word "google" in something totally unrelated to math or the internet, way back in the early nineties. I have proof of it. In the task at hand, I was looking for a word that was silly, unusual. Do I care about google.com? NO, except I love their service.
Googol vs. Google. The guy needs to just get over himself and let Google continue on with the great work they are doing (and he clearly is not).
Anyone else notice the absolute lack of a legal argument in the article?
I don't know about most countries, but in the U.S. at least in theory, you have to sue under the guise of a law or legal principle (common law). I'm not sure exactly which doctrine of law they're appealing to but the most obvious, trademark, applies to words in specific contexts; also they have to be registered and renewed. I doubt these things have been done for the term 10^100.
But you know, everybody's getting rich these days so why not jjump in.
Law: Justice, Truth, and a Growth Industry
Because "Tim Beauchamp" isn't having a multi-million dollar IPO. Kasner isn't mentioned anywhere on the page.
There's much to suggest that our main character is annoying:
:)
* She lives in Santa Cruz, one of the USA's centers of self-absorption and hyper-inflated self esteem. Its residents are really neat -- just ask them. IIRC one of the contestants from the first (egad) "Survivor" episode was a perfect archetype. (Qualifier: Like any other place on earth, Santa Cruz contains scores of normal people. Beautiful place, too...)
* A direct quote from the interview: "I don't want to come across as threatening. Most of the people in our family are pretty intellectual and no one in our family has been really aggressive." So, she's intelligent, morally superior, and definitely not hypocritical. Can I PLEASE have my cake (and yours) and eat it?
* She works in Silly Valley. (Sure, that could mean anything. But it does slightly raise the odds that she's annoying.)
Here is the NPR show.
The great-niece of Kasner who was 4 years old at the time her uncle died says that although Google has brought attention to the name, it has not brought attention to Kasner's work.
Well, they've solved that problem. Instead of Kasner being unknown, he'll now be remembered as "that guy whose boneheaded family tried to sue Google".
Please donate your spare CPU cycles to help fight cancer and other diseases
Oh that's right, they are not going to IPO...
activestudios web design
As gmail doesn't work with opera either.
:)
Thats worth another 12.5 million from google's purses
...because the word "Googol" has been an inspirational breakthrough in the world of math, and the Google search engine has been little more than a coat-tail rider.
This is a side-note really, since it doesn't deal with the word googol, but it's at least halfway on-topic...
I was talking to a friend who works at Google, and apparently the general consensus is that the company does not want the name of the company to be verbed like Xerox has. Like:
"Just go google 'litigious bastards' and see what comes up!"
I can see where they're coming from, as once a term makes it into the lexicon like there is a considerable dilution to the name. Xerox fought that for years. I'm not entirely sure the same thing could happen in this case- but I bet a lot of people were saying the same thing at Xerox in the early 80's.
The first I heard of "googol' was Back to the Future 3, when Doc Brown says, "She was one in a million... one in a billion... one in a googolplex!"
If they are trying to defend a trademarked word, I don't recall them filing suit at that time, and that was almost 2 decades ago.
1. Invent cool name for big number
2. Die
3. ? ? ? ?
4. Profit ! ! !
Sorry (not really)
Well, then I guess the next logical step must be to patent it.
next week: family sues pier one
http://ipod.fresh27.net/
Bajillion.com seems to be cybersquatted... Oh well.
Skazillion? Hoojillion? How many other made-up numeric synonyms for "lots and lots" are there?
Go Ogle
:-)
Its made for searching pron
Now a bunch of long dead Arabs are trying to sue me. Well, shoot.
Better still, when it comes time for me to invoke legal precedent in support of my defense, I'll cite Google v. Googol!
Mercy thy name is, um...line please? ;-)
I invented the word "yahoo" when I was 4 years old too. I was jumping off a cliff and yelled it when I was mid-air.
I had always assumed that the Google name originates with the song "Barny Google, with the goo-goo-googly eyes" - At least, that has SOMETHING to do with a search engine.
And I'm betting it predates the term google that means a big number.
I always thought Google had to do with those "googly eyes" that you use to do crafts projects - this was my first impression when I visited google. So how can they say it's infringing on Googol?
My family has a policy for this kind of stuff. It involves beatings.
I'm going to go back in my box and will think within the limits of my box: MS Sucks Linux Good I read too much Slashdot.
a slow cruel death. The world needs to start un-natuarally selecting the smarter of our species and your family gene pool clearly does not provide anything usefull to our species.
what?
...when I read the article title the first thing I thought was, "Oh great, SCO is claiming they own google aswell".
In a home-movie my aunt took of me when I was a cute little baby, I said, "Google Ga Ga". I was first!
Table-ized A.I.
This whole thing is ludicris.
Prepare for a lawsuit.
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
Mod parent post up.
i want to sue www.booble.com
as my gf has the copyright!
Yeah, that's sounds pretty unfair, doesn't it? Well, here's one possible explanation: Your admitting your mistake doesn't really move the discussion along. We already know you're wrong -- you don't need to tell us. It adds volume to this thread without providing any benefit. It's kind of like the dreaded "me too!" post on USENET. I'm wagering that's why the moderator modded you down. They're trying to discourage useless posts.
The fact that you then suggest that you should have been modded up makes me wish you had been modded down even further. Don't post unless you have something to add. And don't cry when your useless post doesn't get modded up, for chrissake!
In response to this blatant disregard for natural rights, I propose we boycott calling 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 0 "googol" and instead call it "shittle".
/. fucking SUCKS for splitting that number and generally making a mockery of shittle.
And
And here I thought google was an alteration of gaggle which, which it is at least as similar a word as googol, and has similar implications.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
I was just trying to use a quick link to a related article so that someone who doesn't have any legal training that happens to be reading this thread may have a clue as to why the court ruled in favor of McDonalds. That's the beauty of providing references. IANAL, but that's something they teach engineers.
/. as always being completely trustworthy.
I read the case in-depth in lawschool. I'd trust the case (and my memory of it) versus some writer's article about it.
The "I'm right, you're wrong" argument. So, without providing any specifics to the case, that implies (in the context of this conversation) that I should trust your memory. I fear for those who take comments on
Ugh. I just noticed that your comment (that lacks any information) is now modded "Informative".
Thanks for trolling. I'm done with this thread.
This is not my sig.
During lawsuits between Intel and AMD over the 486, the courts ruled that a number cannot be trademarked. That's why Intel's next chip was called the Pentium, not the 586. (Intel also named the later 486 chips "i486".) This is also why Google chose to NOT use the name "googol", because they wouldn't be able to trademark that.
There's also the issue of scope. A trademark does not usually apply to everything, but to a limited area. If the areas of use are distinct and unlikely to cause confusion, the same name can be used by different companies. That's why Apple Records and Apple Computer were able to coexist (until iPod and iTunes came along -- expect some serious friction coming from these two). A search site and a number are unlikely to be confused.
Finally there is the issue of asserting ownership. Trademarks can be lost if they are not used or enforced. The usual examples of companies on the verge of losing their trademarks due to non-enforcement are Xerox and Kleenex. The family has allowed (you might even say encouraged) the term googol to be used by the mathematics community for decades. To now assert that the word should be reserved for only "authorized" use is ridiculous.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
Maybe I'm wrong but I had always assumed that the name had nothing to do with numbers and everything to do with being a Turkish word that mothers use to mean a certain figment of male anatomy.
Would it be immoral and/or illegal to block this girl from using google? I vote no on the first one.
Actually the trigger for going public that got them is reaching 1000 stockholders. At they point they have a year to file. They previously split the company into 2 pieces to avoid this limit. Contribute your spare processor cycles to Google Compute: http://www.powder2glass.com/Google_Toolbar_Compute /
A googly is also a type of throw in cricket. It was developed by one B. J. T. Bosanquet around 1890.
Well, maybe it wasn't adding anything for the humor impaired. I really didn't think much of it until I thought somebody who wasn't too pompous to admit their own error was quite the rarity here. That mods might find it "insightful" struck me as funny.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
Your honour, we know everyone says "google" and thinks of that 10^100 number, but really, we called our search engine "go-ogle", meaning "go look". That "google" word is just a strange coincidence...
I'm a bloodsucking fiend! Look at my outfit!
I invented the word 'Microsopht' to represent a pile of suck. However, I didn't sue the giant......
Pray tell what is "insightful" about that comment?
Here is some insight...
Bullshit like what? Mr. Son of Googol is one guy who doesn't know what he's doing, making a fool of himself. There is no way his claim will fly. Not even close, why are you or anyone else getting so upset about it?
The REAL question is, when will people stop flying off the handle over nothing? Frankly I see all the attention, and all the chicken little syndrome given to this guys claim to be more offensive and disturbing than his ignorant attempt to get rich quick.
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
"google" came from => Go Ogle.
You know, like, surf pr0n.
I'm a 2000 man.
Hey, my phone number is in there... THIS IS A CONSPIRACY!
"We have to go forth and crush every world view that doesn't believe in tolerance and free speech." - David Brin
Google != Googol
Seems to me that they have no case. It's not like the "Googol" family even had any part in building a successful search engine company.
-------------------------------------
Technically, we are beyond survival.
I want one google dollars!
MuahahaMuahahahaMuahahahaha!
Try again. Windows and GUIs existed since 1968. Next I suppose you'll try to tell us that Microsoft was the first to use the term "Word".
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
The number googol is quite easy to visualize on paper, at least the digits. Trying to visualize how much it *really* means is another story. Compare it to the estimated numbers of particles in the universe which is 10 ^ 80 or something like that.
What is even more mind-boggling than a googol is a googolplex, which is 10 ^ 1 googol (10 ^10 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000). That is, a 1 followe by a googol zeroes... Yes, I go crazy too when I think about it!
Apart from googolplex, the highest named number is actually one centillion, which is 10 ^ 600.
When I see the name of the search engine, I'm more inclined to think of "Barney Google" of the 'googly' eyes fame.
The total number of particles in the universe is estimated between 10^72 and 10^87. A googol is 13 orders of magnituted higher then that. That means a googol is about 10 trillion times bigger then the numbers of particles in teh universe.
A googolhedron is 10^300 particles so it's 213 orders of magnitutde greater. Even if we raelise the univerese is 100 trillion times smaller then we thought, we're still not even covering a speck of what is needed. Big numbers are stupid that way.
Just some food for thought
The Neo-Bohemian Techno-Socialist
Excuse me, I own the trademark to the work "global". You will need to rename this thread "Welcome to the Globle Economy."
Thank you.
- Mike
"What did Schroeder give odds of a googol to one against? [His marrying Lucy] (You're a Brave Man, Charlie Brown)" (http://www-math.mit.edu/~tchow/peanuts/mathans.ht ml)
Also, maybe Mr. Schwartz should be named in the suit: G Is For Googol: A Math Alphabet Book by David M Schwartz
(http://www.just-for-kids.com/OCT98NEW.HTM)
Sounds to me like Peri Fleisher is a bloodsucking bitch.
Yep, I just thought of a new number - zoobol
its exactly 112 zeros after a one.
Im gonna sue your ass if u make a site caled zooble..
Some smartass at my old job named the main SNMP config tool we developed after me (because I insisted that he not use backticks in his perl -- the philistine). Well, now people say things like "I tommied eft01 and it seemed to fix the problem." I like the the idea of a legacy but shit I was hoping for a couple of good kids, not an SNMP tool. ;-)
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
Apart from googolplex, the highest named number is actually one centillion, which is 10 ^ 600.
What about Graham's Number? It can even be expressed by normal exponential notation.
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
Ridiculous good luck on this one. Different spelling even
This sounds like a publicity stunt dreamed up BY Google in order to attract attention to their IPO.
They know that the late night talk show hosts and the evening news anchors are going to talk about it, thus giving their little gambling event more free publicity. The theory of Google's IPO wealth is going to be based on "the greater fool" principle, so what better way to introduce more "fools" to the IPO?
"a priori" does not mean what you're using it for, here. It is a Latin term used in English to mean: "1. Proceeding from a known or assumed cause to a necessarily related effect: deductive. 2. Based on a hypothesis or theory rather than on experiment or experience. 3. Made before or without examination: not supported by factual study." The literal Latin means "from the previous (causes or hypothesis)." [from American Heritage Dictionary]
Better: "...a word that some kid made up to describe a big number that existed as prior art."
"The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance."
Note that any old horse can bring a case to trial, but very few end up in the winner's circle.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
Even if the term "googol" was under copyright at some time (and I'm sure it wasn't), the copyright would be more than expired by now and the term would be in the public domain. The family would have to demonstrate that there was substantial commercial interest in the maintaining the copyright, due to the fact that they are producing a product, not trying to jump onto to Google's IPO.
By the way, the difference between StupidPeople and StuplePeopid is the degree of stupidity. (StuplePeopid can't even spell StupidPeople correctly.)
I invented the 80's phrase bookin' (running your ass off) and I'm going to sue every successful hotel and airline!
*rubs hands together* Man am I going to be rich!
MOD PARENT UP FUNNY
In Slovakia we already have word gugol, where u is being read as 'oo' in english, so google can be safely backed up by using english transcription of this slovak word :-)
First of all, it wasn't Kasner himself who coined the term... It was his 9-year-old nephew. Secondarily, the term is not trademarked. You can say, "but how was Kasner to know, at that point, that the word would bring someone else such success?" Well, that's the thing. It's his fault for not making it known that he considered that word his own property. The family apparently feels "ripped off," as if the fact that they created this word should have brought them, not Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the success that google.com achieved. Seems like they're mainly just looking for ways to mooch off of other people's success.
Fortunately, Google can get out of it in two ways -- not only is "google" distinct from the word "googol" and there is no sort of market collision (since nobody is making money off of the word googol anyway), but they can put away the issue of "not promoting the concept" by claiming that their goal is to achieve a googol of links.
Googol googol googol googol googol googol googol googol.
Sue me retards...
It's obvious that "google" is short for "go ogle", no?
What do you have if you have thousands of lawyers buried up to their necks in sand?
Not enough sand. *ba dmp bum*
Maybe Google is a play on Gaggle, not Googol. ;)
I always though googol (10^100) was named after Nikolay Gogol. Perhaps his perils should sue Edward Kasner?
Google overheated my coffee and it burned my crotch! Make me a superstar! Infantile trailer logic. Attorneys ought to be disbarred for abusing the legal system and encouraging these sorts of grandstanding court cases.
I can finally redeem my family name McDonald with our long history of making fatty, thin-patty hamburgers for dinner for generations? After all, where do you think a man with the last name Kroc got the name and the great hamburgers?
Windows doesn't have a trademark because windows existed as a word before MS Windows. Googol isn't any different, it's just a word. So what if it was created relatively recently.
Think about it. Cookie Monster's eyes are "Googley", as in the roll around and look everywhere. Googley obviously refers to being in a "google" like state. Completely unrelated to googol the number.
--------------------------------- Born Again Bourne Again Believer: New Life, GNU/Linux Be Free!
This should be "Interesting"! The term "Window" was around far longer then Microsoft ever was. Yet that didn't stop them from sueing Lindows and getting their name changed. If Microsoft owns the term "Window(s)" why couldn't I start a proc production company and name it "CPU" and then force all the chip makers to either take it off of their box of pay me royalties.
Creative Demolition
I always hated math, now this gives me more of a reason.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
yeah, I knew it wasn't an exact fit, but it got the point across, and I couldn't think of anything better. I don't like "prior art" any more, because it seems to me that art is something that was already created, but didn't inherently exist.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
If they're going to be stinky about it, we should just rename it.
10^100 should become one SCOillion.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
The great-niece of Kasner who was 4 years old at the time her uncle died says that although Google has brought attention to the name, it has not brought attention to Kasner's work. Google was not using the concepts, but just capitalizing on the name.
So the great grand-niece, who probably can't actually remember the guy, is accusing someone else of capitalizing on the name. Oh, the irony!
Seriously though, I think this highlights the problem with the current length of copyright terms quite nicely. Yes, I know this isn't a copyright dispute, and it's a damned good thing! If it was, Google would be screwed, and for what? How would that "promote progress in science and the useful arts"? What has this chick done to advance Mathematics that entitles her to this payday?
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Anyone remember a story a few years back about Microsoft trademarking Zeroes and Ones?
It was in The Onion.
This is fuc*ing great! Let us all sue each other for little things like this! At least this might lower the bs process oriented patent infrindgement law suits!
Let me put it this way...I hadn't even heard of Kasner before this article. So who's capitalizing on the name, again?
If Moogle.com made money, then Square-Enix would sue
This will set precedent which will allow me to sue the makers of the movie "Se7en". Even though they spelled it differently, they still use a word I came up with to describe a number!
-- Some egyptian scholar
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
i know "google" as in a great search engine - that's as far as it needs to go.
just change the name to googol-plex
Unisys had one on LZW (compression, LZ77 variant) for a while, didn't they? Acquired from Sperry Corporation, it looks like.
/. had multiple articles on this.
I wouldn't be surprised if this was marked redundant though - I was under the impression that
regardless of who coined the phrase for it, googol is a number, and google can feel free to copy it.
Or dose someone get to sue the UH shopping chanel hosted on www.million.com too? Hey, I'm sure if I traced back my family lineage far enough someone in my family must have coined some number somewhere- and there's a website for EVERY bloody number (thought some of them are just squatters, they are registered)
In other words, this is just plain ridculous and indicitive of the litigation based soceity that the united states is rapidly becomming.
-Millions of Monkeys, Millions of typewriters, 6 hours of sorting through faeces encrusted pages to find: This post
The interesting thing about infinity is (as ridiculous as this sounds) that it goes on forever. So, I could conclude that if I took the number "1" and tacked every combination of zeros on the end of it, then every word in every language - every sound possible - would not be enough to name every single number. So, all I'd have to do to sue would be to take 10^x where x is sufficiently large enough that no one has named it yet and name it, oh, say slashdot.org. Let the lawsuits commence!
'nuff said.
Are you mods on crack?
Do not speak to anyone. Try to stay indoors (but be absolutely CERTAIN that you own the property and the house and the objects within the house that you are hiding in, else someone with an arcane old property deed might come a'knockin'). Try to live off of bugs in the house (but don't let PETA see you doing that, they might sue you). If you must venture outdoors, DO NOT DRIVE!! We all know what happens when you tap someone else's car these days. Walk instead - but not in crowds because their might be physical contact in a crowd. Try not to touch anyone or anything, do not breathe near anyone, and DEFINITELY DON'T make eye contact. Are you insane? Also be sure that you're wearing shoes that will not in any way scuff the walkway you are using.
If you MUST speak, don't misquote anyone. Better yet, don't quote anyone. Just grunt to make your points - unless you're talking to a woman, because then she may think it's sexual harassment. Actually, a man might think so too, so just point instead. But don't point AT anyone, or else they might think you're accusing them of something and sue you for slander.
If you do any of these things and find yourself being sued for whatever reason, just kill yourself. That way, you stay in the game because your relatives will sue the gun makers and the government (for allowing guns in the first place). If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!
Don't think I'm trying to be funny either. I'll sue you for laughing at me and damaging my fragile ego. In fact, I feel a strange crick in my neck just because you're thinking of laughing. I don't wanna say whiplash YET... but I better go to the doctor just in case.
This is America. Here, the unspoken national motto is "Personal responsibility? WORKING for a living? Eh - who needs 'em?"
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of someone else's money! Hoo-wah!
A googolhedron is a three-dimensional object with a googol faces. (The same way an octahedron is an eight-faced object.) I think you're thinking of the googolplex, which is 10 to the googol power. Which is a truly stunningly huge number.
(Thank you, Carl Sagan! You're missed!)
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
I heard a short interview with the woman suing Google on NPR a week ago. At one point she said that her sister had asked her to tell the interviewer that it was _just her_ who was suing, _not the rest of the family_.
And she's an IP lawyer - go figure.
So don't blame the whole family, just this one cretin.
Meanwhile, Google shows ~30000 hits for "googol" and ~49,200,000 for "google".
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Well, google has been used for hundreds of years. ...
Google is listed in the OED as a
n. one who goggles, a goggling look; the white of the eyes (slang);
and first sited 1616
adj: of the eye
used since the 1500s
1540 T. RAYNALDE Byrth Mankynde II. 78b, Yf the chylde haue google eyes [L. strabos oculos]. 1544 T. PHAER Regim. Lyfe (1546) Ccijb, Of gogle eyes.
verb:
since the 1300s
c1380 WYCLIF Wks. (1880) 341 Pharesees alargen her browes & gogelen fer fro goddis lawe.
So, with trademark law as it is, I would surely say that the word "google" has been part of the English language for at least 600 years, and that must surely predate the invention of the word "googol"
Google is from Googly - to bowl in a certain way by off breaking
WW1, not 2.
The German Bayer company did buy the trademark back, IIRC from an American company named Sterling Brands. So "Bayer Asprin" in the USA is now from Bayer AG.
The clearance system sounds logical. It is not. It is completely arbitrary. -- John Bolton
i really meet that chick who's sueing google for that.
i mean, wow.
im almost speechless...almost.
wow.
"I think, therefore I get paid."
I am now trademarking every word in the English language. You must all now speak Russian.
There's no place like localhost
It's worked so far for other litigious bastards, why not them?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Not in front of the children! You should say, "the nation's gone Bursar! [16th quote] Completely librarian poo".
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
sorry, for some reason i was thinking of a cube with each side subdevided into a googol thick mesh (the most counter intuative thing normally but i've been working on meshing lately) so i was thinking of a googol ^ 3
i just hope i don't get taken to court for libel by defaming the word googol which, little did i know, is patented
The Neo-Bohemian Techno-Socialist
Sillly...
Does this mean that everyone can sit in a que to name the biggest numbers that are known and crunched out by a supercomputer...
AEnertia
Witty, tag line goes here
In Soviet Russia, trademarks register YOU!
(Sorry.)
Sounds to me like that's what happened...
/nova20
Especially when very old song lyrics like "Barney Google with his goo goo googly eyes" are paired with recent images like Gates [reg req'd] and even Google-logoed Dilbert peering through the OOs.
But then, IANAL.
Here you go!
Then the early cloners started using '586' for their Pentium clones. Savvy buyers still were not confused or didn't care.
:D
So the Intel P4 is really an '886' CPU XD
then the remaining meaningful x86 designations: '986' to 'F86'
After that, who knows....
Offtopic ? Prove it !
That was a joke to the topic. Admit it guys, she's your sister.
Hello?? Fred?! Is this you?
Google != Googol
Why?
a) Obviously spelled differently
b) When pronounced correctly, they don't sound the same.
c) Googol has a known meaning, and is not a proper name, whereas Google is JUST a proper name (regardless of where it was derived from)
And that would be the end of this frivolous case, move along, nothing to see...
No Comment.
Barney Google and Snuffy Smith is one of the longest-running comic strips in history. Created by Billy DeBeck in 1919, it first appeared in the sports section of the Chicago Herald and Examiner as "Take Barney Google, F'rinstance."
nuff said.