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Supreme Court Asked To Nullify the Google Trademark (arstechnica.com)

Posted by msmash on from the setting-precedent dept.

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."

18 of 196 comments (clear)

  1. bullshit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    to google means to search on google.
    I don't know what kind of morons this guy talks to, but I never hear people say google when they mean bing, or yahoo or whatever.
    The verb for those is "search".

    1. Re:bullshit by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 5, Funny

      Bing
      Is
      Not
      Google

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    2. Re:bullshit by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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".

    3. Re:bullshit by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Funny

      I've heard "Just google it on bing. Works a lot better."

      I doubt it. I have never heard anyone say that Bing "works a lot better".

    4. Re:bullshit by TWX · · Score: 5, Informative

      Isn't that that great porn search engine, where it will offer raunchier and raunchier suggestions as you keep clicking through them?

      I'm asking for a friend...

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    5. Re:bullshit by EvilSS · · Score: 5, Funny

      Bayer also lost the trademark to "Heroin".

      Well that turned out to be short sighted. The war on heroin would be over today if Bayer could go after street dealers for trademark infringement!

      --
      I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
    6. Re: bullshit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      I prefer to AskJeeves it on AltaVista

    7. Re:bullshit by vux984 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Indeed. I have never heard anyone say "Google it with Bing" except as a joke.

      Practically nobody says "can you pass me a kleenex from that box of puffs facial tissues" unless they are making a joke too. They just say 'pass me a kleenex'. But they'll point at the puffs box while asking without awareness or irony.

      Likewise people do say 'just google X' all the time as a generic synonym for "search for it on the internet". And they'll open their browser and use the default search without any real awareness that its actually yahoo or bing.

      I don't know that its sufficiently generic for loss of trademark. But lets not kid ourselves here, I will say 'google something' yet I use duckduckgo on all the systems at home. The word 'search' doesn't automatically mean 'on the internet' ... if i say 'can you search for my drill' it's not immediately obvious that I want an internet search (e.g. for its specs / support / accessories / current price ), as opposed to finding my actual drill in the garage. And if I say 'google my drill' it means find a product page for my drill on the internet. And I don't care, or even intend for anyone to actually use google to do it.

    8. Re: bullshit by SQLGuru · · Score: 3, Funny

      DogPile on Lycos. (still sort of works linguistically)

    9. Re:bullshit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      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".

      Judge Learned Hand, in Bayer v. United Drug Co, actually noted the "genericization" of "aspirin" began before the First World War, so no, you're wrong. Go read the opinion.

  2. Pretty sure we know the answer. by UnknowingFool · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Like many questions asked on slashdot, the answer should be "No". See Kleenex(TM), Xerox(TM), Band-Aid(TM), etc.

    --
    Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
    1. Re:Pretty sure we know the answer. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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?

  3. What is before SCOTUS is an appeal not a case by Zontar_Thing_From_Ve · · Score: 5, Informative

    Chris Gillespie sued and lost so he appealed to the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS), which is his right. However, the justices have not yet ruled on whether they'll even hear his appeal. My guess is they won't hear it and will let the previous ruling (against Gillespie) stand. I do know that one of the ways you can lose a trademark is not to defend it and nobody can accuse Google of doing this.

  4. Re:Google means search with google by IcyWolfy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.
       

  5. Re:Google means search with google by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 4, Funny
    But these companies have an army of lawyers who would send cease and desist letters to newspapers and other organizations when they use brandnames generically. Xerox used to be very aggressive about it.

    I wonder if there is a way for Google to find people using the word "google" in a generic sense. Some kind of ability to look at millions of use cases and citations, some kind of artificial intelligence to infer the context... Wondering who Google would turn to find information.

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
  6. I prefer to use... by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Funny

    The privacy-preserving search engine, DuckDuckGoogle.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  7. Dan Parisi Defense by t0qer · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  8. Alphabet by dottrap · · Score: 4, Funny

    Good thing they changed their name to Alphabet. They'll never have any problems with that.