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CommentWednesday, May 2, 2007

Google Losing Fight For Its Name

3 Comments

By Stephen (WPN reader) - Mon, 05/14/2007 - 11:26

What they really hate is

What they really hate is when you say, "I googled it on Yahoo®."

By WebProNews Staff - Tue, 05/15/2007 - 10:19

That's pretty much it.

They don't want google to be synonymous with search that takes place on sites that aren't named Google.

By Mister Snitch! (WPN reader) - Sun, 05/13/2007 - 09:05

Google losing trademark status

Quite right, and well-observed. What happened to Kleenex (and nearly happened to Coke) is about to happen to Google, and there's nothing they can do about it.

However, there is a mitigating factor at work that Kleenex did not enjoy. Google is also part of the name of a number of other Google applications, such as Google Mail, Google Ads, Google Desktop, etc. Going generic would hurt Google if it were only a search engine. But with all it has going on, is 'going generic' really going to hurt the company's ability to trademark itself? Probably not. Although "Xerox' and 'Klenex' are now verbs, you still cannot market your product using those names (unless you ARE Xerox or Kleenex). No one else can market their product as "Google" anything.

These days, it seems like less of a handicap for a trademarked name to go generic. Indeed, it's seeming increasingly like a goal, to me.