Slashdot Mirror
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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? :)
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.
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?
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).
..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
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
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
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.
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.
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.
...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...
How can you invent a word?
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....
Ha, even found a quote from the strip: Lucy: Schroeder, What do you think the odds are that you and I will get married someday? Schroeder: Oh, I'd say about "Googol" to one. Lucy: How much is a "Googol"? Schroeder: 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 ,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,0 00,000 ,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
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".
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
There is precedence, though: the whole "Microsoft vs Mike Rowe Software" thing. Granted, in this case Mr Rowe's computer-oriented company name sounded just like the larger and more well-known computer-oriented company's name, and there is a potential for confusion. Certainly, there was no malice intended by Mr Rowe, and MSFT offered goodwill items (an Xbox, etc) for the name trade.
Should Google pay for use of a word that sounds similar? Some would say not... if it weren't for Google's claim on the origin of the Google name:
Does this fall under fair use? A lawyer might see this as cause for more financial recognition than just a blurb on the history page.Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
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.
Jesus must be spinning in his grave....
Well he might if he was still in it.
A latent existence
...and rename the site "butthead great-niece of some math professor."
--- Ban humanity.
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
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??
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
Mathematics is non-trademarkable and non-patentable, and most (if not all) mathematicians want to keep it that way. There is very clearly no legal grounds for any of this, as the niece herself admits.
I used to read Caltizzle. I was a lot cooler than you.
...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!
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
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
It is not her father; it is her great uncle, who died when she was 4 years old.
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?
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
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.
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:
I'm familiar with the case, however, the Inn sold food. Thus, there was a likelihood of confusion.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
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.
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.
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
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
Oh that's right, they are not going to IPO...
activestudios web design
...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.
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.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Now a bunch of long dead Arabs are trying to sue me. Well, shoot.
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.
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.
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!
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
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..
I hate to admit it, but I'm partially wrong and you're partially right. I re-read the case and the McSleep did not sell food. The markets were completely different. The court held that "mc" prefix is identified to such a degree in the public's mind to McDonalds, that the likelihood of confusion would exist even if the market's are different. It specifically held that combining the "mc" prefix with a generic term is a no-no, unless you want to be sued.
Still, that would not necessarily stop me from opening a repair shop called McDonalds, e.g., in Michigan we have a dairy and a painting company each with the name McDonald. But you're right in that it would certainly stop me from opening a repair shop called "McCarFix."
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Googol googol googol googol googol googol googol googol.
Sue me retards...