Slashdot Mirror
Google Loses Gmail Trademark Case
amigoro writes "A court in Germany today banned Google from using the name 'Gmail' for its popular webmail service following a trademark suit filed by the founder of G-Mail. Daniel Giersch, started using the name G-Mail in 2000, four years before Google released 'Gmail'. "Google infringed the young businessman's trademark that had been previously been registered," said the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court in its judgement."
Nissan.com I think is the traditional example.
Quick link to why this is a traditional example:
http://nissan.com/Digest/The_Story.php
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
They call it Googlemail in Germany, and the UK, where the name Gmail was owned by another company. Pre-existing @gmail.com addresses registered by UK users were left as they were, while new signups changed to @googlemail.com.
Sadly, I agree with you at the same time I disagree. Google being the type of company it is surely was aware of G-Mail before they ever even launched gmail and were betting the odds nothing would happen. surely they thought this guy would concede to the great do no evil google. I haven't trusted google since they went public. I don't have a gmail account, and I rarely use any google services except for search. Even those I have done through tor and anonymously as I have never signed up for ANY google service. This case goes on to further prove my point and I hope google is forced to change its service name. There is an easy way to do this. google could be allowed used of gmail for one year and all emails sent from a gmail account will autonomously be fixed to send from googlemail.com instead. Any mail sent to gmail will also send a reply back to originator that all future mail should be sent to googlemail instead. No harm done to anyone.
gmail.com and googlemail.com are the same place. If you get an address on either, you can receive mail on both and check your mail on both. All that happens is that based on which country you're in, you'll get redirected around and wind up with a slightly different logo in the top left. That's it.
What bothers me about this issue, though is the following:
Google has filed lawsuits against Giersch in Spain, Portugal and Switzerland.
"Google has announced, at least in writing, to 'fight' my client abroad for as long as it takes before he drops the legal claims lodged in Germany," Eble confirmed. In other words, the case seems completely in the German fellow's favour, both from a common-sense point of view (G-Mail versus GMail, started using it four years earlier), and from a legal point of view (see the court decision quoted above), yet Google is still fighting the issue.
And? Giersch has proven that his trademark is valid in Germany. Google are within their rights to test it in neighbouring countries to determine whether whatever steps they need to do in Germany (e.g. call in "GoogleMail") also have to be done elsewhere. That in and of itself is not "evil".
fordiman@gmail.com and fordiman@googlemail.com
Try both; supposedly either one will reach your account. And both sites gmail.com and googlemail.com should reach your account to login. So I assume that your "@gmail.com" will be fine.
Plus it only applies to gmail.de unless Google feels like that's enough to redefine the whole GMail trademark globally. Either way, if you're concerned, start referring people to your email @googlemail.com.
Oh yeah, you'll probably want to set a filter for those "mailto"s...
Ironically, you can have Google do this for you. So you can have the "best" web client. If you so choose, you could also have it hosted here and have the worst.
Since Germany has a (mostly) sane legal system, and the judge found the case to be unambiguous, Google will have to pay his legal fees - which is as it should be, IMO.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
This has already happened to google in the UK for a similar trademark reason. Signing up for an account in the UK (you get a drop down box to select country) means you get a googlemail.com address rather than a gmail.com one. However, the site you goto for your email doesn't change - it's actually run under the google.com domain if you look at the address bar, but you are redirected there from both gmail.com and googlemail.com
Conveniently, you still receive bob@gmail.com email at your bob@googlemail.com address, so despite the interface branding you can just use the gmail.com as your published address if you wish. I don't see them changing the gmail interface globally in those countries they don't need to.
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
More to the point he only started registering his trademark abroad after GMail itself launched. Read the article, he registered G-Mail as a trademark in Switzerland in 2005.
They have already been locked out from the name gmail in the UK, and have to give googlemail.com names to UK users.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
Actually, Google already lost this case in April 2006, but they appealed. Now, they lost the appeal also at the Hanseatic Upper Court. Google cannot appeal at the German Supreme Court but could try to file for non-admission of the ruling. Here is an article that gets the details right.
Interestingly, Google already rebranded GMail in Germany as Googlemail, so it's really not that clear why they think that they have a case and why it is important to them.
Gnaa indeed - though - going back around ~15 years, the German government telco became a private company - "Deutsche Telekom", and soon after proceeded to sue a company called "Deutsche Telekom" which had been making pneumatic delivery letter chutes for a long time before the telco went private...
In that case, the older and smaller company "lost" and had to change its name, on the basis that it would be too expensive for a company as large as the "new" "Deutsche Telekom" to change its name again -- BUT, the "new" Deutsche Telekom had to pay the smaller company for the whole name change operation (though, no extra payments for the lost name)...
Interesting that our German courts NOW speak against the large company - instead of following in the same footsteps and just forcing google to pay for all costs relating to the other 'gmail' changing its name...