Friday, February 2, 2007

Google Loses Gmail Name in Europe

Via ArsTechnia -

Google's Gmail trademark just suffered a severe blow in Europe as the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market has ruled against the search giant's use of the Gmail name there, according to the man who opposed the mark.

Daniel Giersch, a German-born 32-year old entrepreneur, has just announced that his company received a positive ruling last week from the Harmonization Office supporting his claim that "Gmail" and his own "G-mail" are confusingly similar. G-mail is a German service that provides a "gmail.de" email address, but also allows for a sort of "hybrid mail" system in which documents can be sent electronically, printed out by the company, and delivered in paper format to local addresses.

Giersch has been successful in German courts so far, which is why German users can't sign up for "gmail.com" accounts (they get "googlemail.com" instead), and he has now taken his fight to the EU office that handles trademark disputes for the continent. On January 23, according the Giersch, the Harmonization Office supported his own claim against Google, a company he refers to as "Googliath."

"My trademark 'G-mail' suffers through this name abuse," Giersch said in a statement. "I must repeatedly tell my investors that my undertaking has nothing to do with these reports [i.e. stories in the media about "Gmail"]."

Google also switched from Gmail to Google Mail in the UK back in 2005, after a dispute with a company called Independent II Research.

Google is still free to appeal the ruling, but Giersch's string of legal victories make success look unlikely. Google is certainly interested in using the Gmail name wherever it can—Giersch claims the company offered him $250,000 for it at one point—but it now looks it will be "Google Mail" throughout Europe.

That's got to sting, as Google is a company used to getting its way, but it comes as consolation to Giersch, who said in an interview last year that "Google's behavior is very threatening, very aggressive and very unfaithful, and to me, it's very evil."

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