More evil from Google. Google has gone from being a company for underdogs to one that just supports its own status quo.
No wonder I stopped using it.

IANAL, and I could be very wrong here, but isn't there something in trademark law which refers to trademarked names entering common use and thus losing their trademark status?

For example "Google" has now become a verb as well as the name of a company. How often have you heard people say "I'll go and google it" or sentiments of that ilk.

Actually I just googled it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genericized_trademark

Oh sweet irony...

Any group (for- or not-for-profit) or individual whose motto is "Don't be evil" is committed to looking at everything it does through the filter of "Is this evil?" This filter enabled Google to offer a refreshingly altruistic alternative to formerly more powerful Internet and computing software leaders. But the tail is now wagging the dog. Two-year-olds go through the stage where "Mine!" is their mantra. Thank God most of us outgrow that phase and learn to share.

Grow up, Google!

They did not suddenly noticed this trademark application ... They got notified first hand from the date she filed for the TM application !

Car manufacturer Peugeot have trademarked/protect cars that are named in a specific way:

X0X (where X = any other number)

they successfully defended this when Porsche tried to call a car the Porsche 901 (upon loosing the case Porsche renamed the vehicle to the 911).

So you can copyright/trademark numbers.. the only case I see google having is if the web comics googol logo is written in a similar style to the google logo...

-cyph

<< their significant investment on the trademark

You mean by leaving the door open to such a situation when ignoring the Kasner family on their right to be part of their IPO ???

There were Amazons - in myth anyway - long before there was an online company selling pieces of processed rainforest. Likewise Titans (must be someone's trademark, at least off the "Titanic"), Olympus, Phoenix, Lucifer (matches? or was that a generic name in the end?)

I once worked for a body called Set that launched an umbrella project called Isis. I don't think I impressed anyone by pointing out that in mythology a child of Isis had slain Set... and indeed it didn't go as badly as that.

I can think of quite a few trademarks that have existed in other uses prior.

For example a particular fruit-themed company is well within their rights to enforce their trademarks if I set up a webcomic about a superhero who looks like an apple with a bite out of it whose power is to play music.

In fact I think that would cause at least two separate corporate entities sending me letters.

As previously pointed out, Google must defend it's trademarks or it will effectively lose them. Trademarks become unenforceable if you do not enforce them.

Does anyone really claim that this particular webcomic heroine does not remind you of things Googleish?

I think it's unlikely Google would have taken any real action in this matter, at least prior to the cartoonists assault given the relatively small thing this is. But they MUST at least appear to be protecting their trademarks and therefore cannot even backtrack on this one lest they lose their significant investment on the trademark.

The alternative really is that everyone can launch their own Google-whatever. IMHO that would most likely end up in things very evil done by others using Google's lost trademarks.

Am I to be led to believe that a UK or EU court worth its salt would even entertain Christine's complaint.

Go Forth and Search Yourself!

"Iam Googol" ie.:Sylvaine Francis should be entitled of punitive compensation from Google's anti-competive harassment of a British national.

The very idea that Google would intimidate for their own gain and in the stated purpose of purloining immediately the superhero identity and web estate and any properties as a conditional foregoing to avoid a lawsuit intended for enstating these said remedies, is tantamount to rapacious extortion and a surreptitious disregard for the rights of an individual and the law.

I have sensed a disturbance in the farce which would lead me to the conclusion that Google, like Intel and Microsoft, will soon find itself the cusp of EU paroxysms.

Anyone remember when Intel was trying to trademark/copyright 386 and 486 -- just the numbers!?!?! So they named the next processor, and the Pentium was born.

If you want to be a unique and beautiful snowflake, perhaps you should choose something that is actually unique to start with, Google!

I thought the mathematician copyrighted the term after it became popular? If the author retains a lawyer, someone should give them a ring and suggest that this may be a possibility. Either way, simply defining the term at the beginning of the comic and saying the comic isn't connected to Google in any way should take the teeth out of the lawyers.

I remember reading the name Google in Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It mentiones a super computer named "Googleplex Star Thinker":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minor_characters_from_The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy#Googleplex_Star_Thinker

Ironically, Google also calls their headquarters Googleplex: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googleplex.

Probably doesn't invalidate the trademark, but it may make it harder to enforce if you just claim reference to the fictional super computer. ;)

P.S.: IANAL

Forcing the Goo Goo Dolls to withdraw their back catalogue... hmm, a bit harsh, but I've heard worse ideas.

If someone is stepping on your trademark then you have to defend it like an illegally bred dog, or you may lose it. This means that stern shouty letters are sent by lawyers but may come to nothing.

According to comics writer and artist John Byrne, for instance, when he launched a comic called "John Byrne's Next Men", he got a letter from the X-Men's lawyers about the title. That he had worked for the X-Men previously may have contributed to this, and there were certain similarities in the scenario concepts - as between any two superhero-type comics. (I think the actual word "superhero" is a trademark.) But apparently other than writing back to say that his title was strictly and in full "John Byrne's Next Men", he carried on with his own project without particular difficulties, except for actually making substantial money out of the venture. He took a break from the project after a few years, and didn't resume. Did a bunch of other works instead.

Fictional characters with superhuman memory aren't new - The Champions, an exciting TV series in the 1960s, had three secret agents with unlimited memories, and Sherlock Holmes - well, he apparently clipped and filed every story in the newspapers. And there's the guy in Hitchcock's "Thirty-Nine Steps".

The word "googol" predates Google, Inc by decades. In fact, I wouldnt be surprised if a sufficiently assiduous web search turned up evidence that the latter was inspired by the former. (Though for that you might need to select your search engine with care, heh heh.)

Google, Inc dont have a leg to stand on *unless* they could show that use of "googol" would lead to confusion. (You might well argue that if they had wanted to avoid confusion they shouldnt have chosen a name that simply misspells a common word, but that is the law.)

So, do Google, Incs lawyers *honestly* believe that ordinary punters will read a webcomic and think "oh this must have been written by Google, Inc because the name is kinda similar"? It certainly appears that way, doesnt it?

I mean, its not like theyre just lashing out at anything remotely similar to their trademark on the off chance, is it? Or willy-nilly attacking people whom they believe will lack the resources to defend themselves?

Apropos nothing at all, perhaps its about time we had a law against chickenshit "intellectual property" lawsuits.