In the suit, Google maintains that it is the "senior user of marks that incorporate the formative " -- OOGLE" for Internet search services." That's news to the principal of a company that owns the domain name oogle.com, who yesterday said he had "not heard a peep" from Google.[sun-sentinel.com...]
If you read the judgement below in detail you'll probably agree with Apple & Nominet too. The decision explains clearly how "the little guy" was viewed as taking the P*** rather than Apple being bullys.
[nominet.org.uk...]
Hope Google lose but as with Apple above, is there more to it than meets the eye?
J
[members.tripod.com...]
I can understand Google inc wanting to prevent brand dilution, but attempting to secure legal rights and potentialy damage someone elses business is taking things just way to far.
Mack.
for themselves they do. Their only fair option is to buy the guy out. Offer legal fees and tens of thousands in cash /stock to the owner. Even if Google wins, it would cost them more in legal fees and villification. $500+ an hour adds up really quick.
As the Itunes case is showing, TM law needs to be redrafted to consider domain names, as independent of TMs.
Created on..............: 2001-Sep-11.
Expires on..............: 2014-Sep-11.
hmmmm.... guess they weren't looking at the news....
Hey, that's exactly right! If google want to own any words ended with "-oogle", it should pay out the entire revenue of these years since it's born.
^_^, that should be the best resolution for all such suits, or Google will must be dead beat with countless complaints and opposition proceedings.
[alexa.com...]
I think this is more a case of Google being a young company and making yet another stupid PR gaffe rather than them being some evil supercorp.
Time for a new google me thinks.... I remember a good friend telling me alta vista was dominant and no other search engine could take its place, back in 1996.
[edited by: woollyhat2 at 11:58 pm (utc) on April 19, 2005]
With trademark law, you normally have to argue a 'passing off' action - i.e. that an 'infringer' is using a confusingly similar name/mark as your own to deliberately fool people into thinking that the 'infringer' is the same person/organinsation as you, the trademark owner.
The issue of Froogles is a bit more complicated, by virtue of the prior use. I see that Google has made a settlement offer to the owner of Froogles, which seems quite reasonable and leaves them both with their marks and sites intact; I don't see any description of counter-offers from the other side. If the guy is expecting to force Google to walk away from its Froogle brand, or hopes to obtain an unreasonably high price for his website, why should I feel sympathy for him? Google is not going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars litigating against a site it could buy for a fraction of the cost of litigation.
Google is not going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars litigating against a site it could buy for a fraction of the cost of litigation.
If the site was for sale!
I think it has to be said that most people in this sort of situation would have accepted the first offer or tried to off load the company to Google. I admire the guy for wanting to take this head on and actualy stand up for what he belives in.
For many people a website is a lot more than a busines. It's something you have worked hard for. Something you have put a lot of time and effort into and something you feel strongly enough to want to fight for.
Imagine how you would feel if a well known company bought a domain one letter different from yours and set up a site offering almost the exact same sevice that you offer. How would you deal with it. Would you do anything different. I know that if I was in this situation I would fight it with everything I had.
Mack.
I wouldn't file for a trademark after-the-fact, attempt to piggyback on the other company's name and marketing, decline reasonable settlement offers, or try to extort more than my site was worth if they were interested in buying.
In the case of small to medium sized businesses, many do not go down the TM road simple because they either overlook it or just do not see it's importaince. It can also be a great area of confusion.
To be honest I don't feel that we should be disgussing the legal aspects on here. I cant speak for anyone else but I am not a lawyer and legal issues are not my place.
All we can really do is look at it from an outsiders point of view and try to see things from both points of view.
No one will argue that Google was here first. That issue has never been disputed. But I fail to see any confusion between "Google" and "Froogles" Now lets assume Google never launched it's froogle service, in this case I think we can safely say This dispute would never have happened. I just cant see any logic for Google to then open a serive on a domain that so closely resembled that of another site. Froogle? tell me what that has to do with shopping? apart from it being named one letter different to another shopping site. I dont think Google deliberatly named their service to try and mimic the froogles service. Lets face it they dont need to. The Google brand is by far powerfull enough to market pretty much anything. I just cant understand why they didn't research their choice of name to ensure it wasnt likely to clash with any other site.
Mack.
Why F and not S?
I can see froogle being a play on Google but I dont see any relevance between froogles and google.
Mack.
froogles seemed more like an affiliate link farm than a shopping service.
Then Google's Froogle pretty much copied them. Granted Froogle don't get commissions on sales YET, but once it's out of beta you can be pretty sure they'll have some kind of premium service where they get some kind of cut on partner stores.
I mean, would you give all those sales away when you could tap into it, especially if you were a public company?
what does that have to do with the guy registering the name first? Can I take your name if I make a "better" site? Check this out: [answers.com...]
ICANN already ruled against Google, rightly, I feel, and this lawsuit is a "nice try" but deserves a second slap-down.
