"We chose the name Buzz because of the word’s connotations of activity, conversations, sharing of information… Buzz’ is not a trademarked term."

For further details, read the full article: Google: "Buzz" Is Not a Trademarked Term

ORIGINIAL ARTICLE: Recently, Google officially announced their latest product, Google Buzz, during a live press event. If you’re not familiar with Google Buzz, it’s a way to share updates, photos, videos, and more. (You can read an extensive writeup of Google Buzz here).

Wait a minute; doesn’t the name Buzz sound familiar? Well, there’s a good reason for that. Let me re-introduce you to Yahoo! Buzz.

Should Google have picked a different name for their service? Share your thoughts.

For those of you who don’t know what Yahoo! Buzz is, or for those of you who forgot it even existed, it’s a Digg-esque social bookmarking service that launched back in 2008.

The first thing that came to this writers mind was, “how can two rivals in the search industry each have a product with the same name?” Granted, they’re two separate services, but both reside in the social media realm.

Another thing that should be noted is the Yahoo! Buzz logo features a trademark. That trademark only applies apparently to the the word Yahoo, not "Yahoo Buzz". 

What do you think will happen between Google & Yahoo? Tell us what you think.

UPDATE: Looks like Yahoo! finally caught wind of Google Buzz, they recently tweeted the following…

Turkewitz wrote in a blog post about a ruling on the constitutionality of car rental company immunity from some types of negligence suits. For the post he used the logos of Hertz and Avis. He was told by Avis’s lawyers to remove the image from his post.

Fred Grumman, associate general counsel at Avis commented on the blog saying," "We have the greatest respect for your right to express your opinions on your blog, but that does not include the right to use Avis’ trademark as you have done in this particular piece."

"Understandably, trademark law is not within your area of expertise. Therefore, we trust that this was done out of ignorance and not based on an intent to misuse our mark to the benefit of your personal injury practice. We ask that you remove it immediately and refrain from any similar use in the future."

Turkewitz said he does not believe he has committed a trademark violation and asked readers in his post if the use of the Avis logo was a violation of its trademark. In response to Grumman’s request Turkewitz wrote a public post directly to him.

Turkewitz wrote," I am at a loss to figure out exactly how your trademark claim trumps my free speech rights. Since, as you believe, trademark law is not within my area of expertise, and that I am simply ignorant, perhaps now is the time for you to set forth exactly how and why I should surrender my constitutional rights to your company."

He then asks for a formal cease and desist letter. "So send me a proper cease and desist letter. Set forth for me with specificity your claims of legal superiority. You now have the opportunity to demonstrate your expertise and analysis in this arena since I, as you indicate, am simply too ignorant to know it myself."

The Avis logo is still in place in the original blog post and the follow-up post about the issue.

The trademark attorneys for LucasFilms, the George Lucas’s production company responsible for such classics as Star Wars and Indiana Jones, claims Digg is far too similar to The Dig, a relatively obscure video game released first released in 1994.

In the complaint (PDF) filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, there is first a focus on Digg’s own description of its services, specifically the part addressing "news and information in the field of technology, namely computer games and computer enhancement for games."

While making a case that product descriptions are somewhat similar might be a stretch, LucasFilms really doesn’t like it that the marks are different by only a letter – only one letter because, according to the complaint "the" doesn’t count as part of the mark, though some may beg to differ.

LucasFilms claims that Digg is identical or nearly identical to The Dig and is "confusingly similar in sound, meaning, and appearance," which likely will "create confusion, mistake or deception in the minds of prospective purchasers as to the origin of source of goods." What’s more, they "travel in the same channels."

And while any self-respecting Digg.com is, by creed, a major George Lucas fan, the users seem more confused about someone suggesting they don’t know the difference between the news website and the video game nobody plays. One commentator calls the lawsuit "frivolous."

In almost correct English, Digger Maxwell Lamb writes:

Lucasfilm no longer care about ‘The Dig’ trademark, as the brand is obsolete and no longer relevant to their business or their merchandising. They have filed what they know to be a frivolous suit with a view to Digg winning with ease, thus setting a precedence for the prevalence of their trademark.

But Richard "Red Eye" says LucasFilms’ legal team is just doing their job:

As far as I know "The Dig" wasnt a website full of megalomaniacs who thought that the world revolved around their opinions.

So since there is no likely confusion between the two trademarks then the suit will be tossed and both trademarks will be enforced. Lucas is just exercising their legal requirement to defend their trademarks or risk losing them. A little overzealous but it provides 100% protection for them in the future.

But we won’t know for sure until at least after August this year, when the discovery period closes. Interestingly though, as one commentator has mentioned, TheDig.com doesn’t belong to LucasFilms, even though the product has been around for a dozen years. So this latest enforcement action seems to have just occurred to them after Digg.com became so popular.

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The lawsuit that would have helped define the situation has been settled out of court, according to ClickZ.

According to attorney and Santa Clara University law professor Eric Goldman, the case could have set some precedent about third-level subdomains (like the “blog” part of http://blog.clickz.com). While trademark law has been shown to apply to a regular domain name, it has not yet been applied to third-level ones, and it’s not clear that it would apply, he said. It would also help define Google’s responsibility in what subdomains it allows to be registered.

It will be a brave judge that rules that subdomains can violate a trademark. There’s very little distinction between a subdomain and a subdirectory (e.g. mydomain.com/google/).

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Andy Beal is an internet marketing consultant and considered one of the world’s most respected and interactive search engine marketing experts. Andy has worked with many Fortune 1000 companies such as Motorola, CitiFinancial, Lowes, Alaska Air, DeWALT, NBC and Experian.

You can read his internet marketing blog at Marketing Pilgrim and reach him at andy.beal@gmail.com.