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Supreme Court Asked To Nullify the Google Trademark (arstechnica.com)
Is the term "google" too generic and therefore unworthy of its trademark protection? That's the question before the US Supreme Court. From a report: What's before the Supreme Court is a trademark lawsuit that Google already defeated in a lower court. The lawsuit claims that Google should no longer be trademarked because the word "google" is synonymous to the public with the term "search the Internet." "There is no single word other than google that conveys the action of searching the Internet using any search engine," according to the petition to the Supreme Court. It's perhaps one of the most consequential trademark case before the justices since they ruled in June that offensive trademarks must be allowed. The Google trademark dispute dates to 2012 when a man named Chris Gillespie registered 763 domain names that combined "google" with other words and phrase, including "googledonaldtrump.com."
to google means to search on google.
Indeed. I have never heard anyone say "Google it with Bing" except as a joke.
Nitpick: TFA claims that the trademark for "aspirin" was lost through generic use. This is wrong. Bayer was forced to abandon the trademark because Germany lost the First World War. Bayer also lost the trademark to "Heroin".
You obviously haven't been around non-tech people in a while.
I've heard "google that on Bing" "I use yahoo to google."; for a non-trivial number of people, "to google" justt means "to search online".
Just like "hand me a kleenex" "i need a band-aid". The terms are still trademarked, but the public chooses to use it generically for anything similiar.
See Kleenex(TM), Xerox(TM), Band-Aid(TM), etc.
Why so? There are plenty of genericized trademarks, like Thermos, or Dumpster.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_genericized_trademarks
But did you know that "Realtor" has not been genericized yet?
We used to love Dan Pirisi here on slashdot. The guy made a habit out of registering things he didn't like with "Sucks" at the end of it.
http://www.salon.com/2001/06/2...
His case was hard fought and he won with the defense of registering a domain name with "sucks" in it is a criticism of the companies being featured. Good story from the early days of slashdot/the internet.