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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!
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.
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.
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.
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!
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!
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
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.
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
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.