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15th Nov 2006 Lessons in registering domain names
When Google launched its Froogle shopping service in 2003, it forgot to register the co.uk domain name, which was snapped up by a wily Web site designer in Purley. Two and a half years ago, in issue 39 of the newsletter, we reported Google's first problems with Gmail, writing: "Google's plans to launch a free e-mail service - to be known as 'Gmail' - have been confused by Market Age, an AIM-listed British investment research house which claims that it has been using the name for the past two years. 'When the news came out about Google's Gmail, I went to the US patent and trademark authorities. I thought maybe we were in trouble. But Google hadn't even registered the name', said chief executive Shane Smith". Eighteen months later, in October 2005, Google gave up the legal battle with Smith, lost the right to the Gmail trademark in the UK and renamed the service Google Mail, although users who registered before then were allowed to hang on to their Gmail addresses. Now it looks as if Google has lost another name argument in Europe. Daniel Giersch, a German-born venture capitalist, is adamant that he will never relinquish his six-year-old trademark registration of "G-mail...und die Post geht richtig ab" (translation: G-mail... and the mail goes right off) and a court in Hamburg has ordered Google to remove all "Gmail" references from its German service and to cease handing out gmail.com aliases.
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