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."
Sounds like the guy had a legitimate case. I'm sure that it cost him a fortune to defend a suit against Google. I'm surprised Google thought they could win this one. Isn't case law in this area pretty strong? Nissan.com I think is the traditional example.
How about GoogleMail ?
I didn't found something funny to put here.
I sure hope google doesn`t change the name of gmail globally.
I personally use my gmail address for just about everything. It scares me to think about how long it would actually take to go around and change my email address on all the various services I use.
Did they try to offer him a big wad of money, say US$50M bucks?
That'd certainly be a lot better way to do it than ruin some poor guy's life with worry over court cases - which incidentally does Google's image no good.
ISO certified == THX certified
Does anyone else find it ridiculous that a company, whether it be Google or someone else, thinks they can basically own the rights to a letter in the alphabet.
In trademarks, they are never trademarking only parts of the name, but the full name. Google is not trademarking "G", but "Gmail". They can't trademark "mail", but again, it's the full sequence of letters that is.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
It is also true that Apple owns Apple. I find it pretty ridiculous that the world has lost a fruit to the corporate world, and that a place that sells apples, could find themselves sued if they have this fact in their business name.
Remember that trademarks are restricted to a line of business. Apple can be used to sell computers, vacations, and music without any problem (at least until the first Apple started selling music!). I doubt any of those companies would be successful in shutting down a grocery seller using the name apple (barring other factors that might confuse consumers).
"This is the way of big bureaucratic corporations that lack innovation," Lack innovation? ummmm.... oh well, it's slashdot!
If I were Google I would simply shut down Google.de and the German GMail and give the whole country the big old middle finger. I bet it would only take months for local public pressure to force g-mail to get out of the way of the real Google GMail.
That is not how it works. The guy owns the trademark and Google is infringing. There is also no appeal, because the case is obvious. The only way for Google to get this resolved is to convince the trademark-owner. Public opinion and/or pressure does not play any role here.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
It's the exact same argument that is brought up regularly regarding Microsoft in the EU. "Microsoft should just pull out of the EU instead of paying all the fines. That'll show 'em!!!11"
"A Lisp programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing." - Alan Perlis
I don't know if letting large corporation drive smaller competitors out of business simply by taking their trademarks would be wise.
Yeah goes to show how much you can trust any large corporation to stick to their corporate slogan.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
How are Google innovating?
Syndicated advertisements existed long before Google
Syndicated news existed long before Google
Search engines existed before Google
Web mail of various kinds existed long before Google
Online versions of desktop applications existed before Google had them, albeit in a more simple form (limited by the technology at the time) e.g. yahoo calendar, yahoo notepad etc - The concept was there though.
Deja news was bought by google and turned into google groups
Online photos had existed long before google acquired picasa
They bought google earth and online maps existed long before
In summary,Google seems to copy or acquire and occasionally improve rather than innovate.
They are very good at marketing though, much like MS really:
Google were very lucky with viral marketing early on.
MS was lucky with IBM and DOS.
Google, to their credit have not lost focus on their bread and butter - search.
MS have never lost their focus on OSes and Office Applications
MS were heros until they got too big.
Hmmm...
Note: I am not against Google, but like any business, they would rip anyone off if they could get away with its so I never really understand this worshiping of businesses some geeks like to engage in.
And this is why I have my email hosted (along with web hosting) on my own domain name. First of all, it establishes a "non-generic" email address that's easy to remember (myname@lastname.com anyone?), instead of some weird randomuser127@hotmail or some other nonsense. Personally I recommend to everyone who is serious, especially contracting professionals, to get their own domain (or a family domain, or whatever) for email purposes. You never know if your current free email provider will one day start charging, or change their privacy policy, or in this case, be in danger of losing their domain name. For someone who is professionally connected, changing your email is an incredibly difficult task, and you stand to lose a lot of extremely valuable communication. I've been using my email address for years now, and I couldn't be happier. Since I host it, I get to connect to it however I damn well please. I can run the best webmail client on the server that I like, I can get at it with IMAP, POP, or any other method I see fit, and customize my spam blockers the way I like. It's truly miles above any of the free services out there, though Gmail probably has the best web client.
Look, if my business is doing well, and earning say 2-3 millions a year in a local market. Assume it's a good product, the customers are happy, everything is fine. Assume that it's a product that relies on brand recognition.
Now along comes Giant Corporation Inc. with a similar-named product. It would nevertheless hurt my business considerably. You're saying that's ok and I and my customers have to suck it up simply because GCI is bigger?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
For starters, Germany is the export world record holder. Its 80 million people are one of the most important markets on this planet. It is also one of the leading countries of the European Union, the largest and most profitable economy around.
You don't walk away from that market, unless you have an (economic) suicide wish and want to be fired by your shareholders.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
When we start seeing governments step in to force small businesses to change their names and give up domain names that they legitimately acquired and use, because a larger company feels it would be better if they could use the name and domain, then we will have a problem.
:) )
There are enough abuses already in the patent and trademark areas without adding a rule that states simply that the bigger your company the more rights you have.
There was recently a case in the UK where The Tan Hill Inn, which is apparently the "highest pub in England", was told by KFC to remove references to "family feast" from its Christmas menu. I mean, apart from the fact that it is ludicrous that anyone could claim ownership of the term "family feast", it is unlikely that you are going to confuse a meal that apparently includes Guinness and stilton pate, roast turkey and Christmas pudding with a cardboard box of fried chicken, chips, coleslaw, potatoes, gravy and a 1.25-litre bottle of some soft drink. I would also assume that if you are sat in a (probably) few century old building, with a Bar and a sign saying "Tan Hill In" over the door, it is unlikely that the moment you open the menu and see family feast you are going to think that you are in a KFC and get all confused.
However by your reckoning I assume KFC should be permitted to force this pub not to use this generic term, after all KFC is an international brand, it benefits far more people to have KFC use the term rather than some pub in the UK, not to mention the fact that clearly no one else will have used the term "family feast" before KFC started using it...
The system for trademarks is (if not abused) fairly sound in most places; If you use it first its yours, if someone else uses a term you have trademarked but are in a different business areas (and there us unlikely to be confusion) then that's OK and you cant trademark something too generic. If that is all enforced properly then problems should not occur. In this case Gmail was being used by a German fellow before Google got into the game, he is using it legitimately, the two services are similar enough that there could be confusion and Google clearly didn't check to see if the trademark was in use before it started using it or was aware that it was in use and didn't care, either way that's Google's problem.
Lastly the people in this thread saying that Google are being evil by pursuing this case are wrong, and they are wrong for the reason that you already mentioned, Google are trying to be consistent internationally, that is good for their users, they offered to buy the domain and were denied. It made good business sense for them to attempt to acquire the domain through legal means and if they had it would have been beneficial to people in Germany who want to use their services (whether it is more or less beneficial than the other is obviously debatable). They haven't left this individual out of pocket (and if they had then the law would have had to say he was in the wrong - so fair enough.)
(Sorry for the ramble, I think it makes sense...
So, this may not be innovation, but the innovation is somewhere else. "Do no evil" is a fine summary, even though Google sometimes Google is evil.
Your argument really is that money determines who gets a right and who doesn't? Maybe my oxyen and water consumption isn't less effective than Joe Rich's, so you're going to terminate my living license next? That's how the world works - the weak perish, only the strong survive. Actually, you don't understand Darwin. It's not the strong who survive, it's the most adaptable. But that's another topic.
What this is about is Trademark Law. Now you can argue for it to be completely abolished and maybe we can even agree there. But if we accept trademark law, then it can not be right that the deeper pockets win just because they are deeper. Because even Google started out as a small company. Because every giant corporation of today was small once. If you allow only the big to survive, then us humans wouldn't be here today and it would be all dinosaurs instead.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Google's search engine was important because it was faster to search, faster to load (a very big deal on a modem), and looked much easier on the eye. Not because it works, plenty of other engines beat them there.
That's not how I remember it. Google's popularity grew through word of mouth way back when it was google.stanford.edu precisely because it gave much better results. Sure, the speed and simplicity were nice to have, but do you seriously think that so many people would purposefully switch to a worse search engine, something that is intrinsically worse?
Google had a new approach to search, and it worked really well for a few years, until people learned how to game it effectively. By this time, other engines had caught up, and that's why there isn't such a big difference any more. But back then, the difference was huge, and that's why Google gained dominance in the search engine market.