Don't "Hitchhike"A Ride On Google's Trademarks and URLs

Beware of ticking off Google by abusing its registered trademarks or URLs.

Google has had a recent dustup with MoreGoogle, a site that promised "enhanced" results based on Google searches.

Last month, MoreGoogle founder Andreas ("Leaning Tower Of") Pizsa felt the weight of Google's "lean" too much. The Austrian gave up his domain name to the big search engine that can .. sue, if need be.

Google is also quite properly vigilant about its trademarks.

So yesterday, I decided to have some fun and check the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office Web site for trademark applications that sound a lot like "Google." In some cases, the applications were rejected, were withdrawn or were allowed to expire. Sometimes this happened after a USPTO examiner objected, other times after the trademark-holder made their feelings known to the same agency.

The latest abandoned Google sound-alike trademark application I found was for "Googleprice," which would have been "an Internet price comparison Web site service."

Admit it. Doesn't the now-discarded vision for "Googleprice" connote exactly what Froogle does? Yup, too much potential for confusion there.

Other dropped Google-like trademark applications on record at the USPTO include "Oogles and Googles of Stuff," "Googleberry" and "Googlegear." To me, "Googlegear" sounds too much like a place where you can buy, say, tee shirts with the Google logo. (If you really want a Google tee shirt, they are available for purchase at the Google Store).

These rejections and abandonments have not prevented others from trying for trademarks that, one could say, at least make one think of Google. Right now, there are what the USPTO calls "live" applications for such trademarks as "Googlelaw," (for electronic retailing and computer services), and at least three for the term "Googles."

I'm not a trademark attorney, but it seems to me that a trademark examiner seeking to pass judgment on such applications might have to balance Google's hard-won identity with uses that pre-date the search engine.

In 1999, a "Word Mark" (similar to a trademark, but more of a logo than a business name) was granted to a Laguna Beach, Cal. woman for Google Trout. The line of soft stuffed animals had been around since 1993, five years before Google was born.

An even more colorful derivation of "Google" can be found in Douglas Adams "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy." In the book one of Deep Thought's designers asks, "And are you not," said Fook, leaning anxiously foward, "a greater analyst than the
Googleplex Star Thinker in the Seventh Galaxy of Light and Ingenuity which can calculate the trajectory of every single dust particle throughout a five-week Dangrabad Beta sand blizzard?"

Brief sidebar cackle: I know some firms who would looove to have more great analysts who can calculate trajectories. :-)

No, Adams did not take from Messrs. Brin and Page. Quite the reverse. Google employees call their headquarters building the "Googleplex." As to Adams, he launched his work as a radio comedy in 1978 - the year that Sergey and Larry turned five.

Google itself was founded in 1998- 59 years after the trademark for cartoon characters Barney Google ("with the Goo, Goo, Google-y eyes") and Snuffy Smith was granted. Messrs. Google and Smith received their third trademark extension in 1999.

Posted by Russell Shaw, December 21, 2004 01:53 PM | | TrackBack