Google to be Sued Over Name?

WK writes "Now that Google's IPO is running, the company is on the verge of being sued by the family of Professor Edward Kasner who invented the word 'Googol' to describe a very big number. The great-niece of Kasner who was 4 years old at the time her uncle died says that although Google has brought attention to the name, it has not brought attention to Kasner's work. Google was not using the concepts, but just capitalizing on the name."

How much money do they want?

[gowen]

Answer : write down a figure, then add a lot of zeros. *rimshot*

Thank you. I'll be here all week; don't forget to tip your server. Why not try the tuna?

hmmm i wonder

[Anonymous Coward]

do you suppose she used google to find local legal advice?

In other news

[Gothmolly]

Some dead Greek guy's relative sues MPAA over use of the word 'Pi' as a movie title.
Roman mathematician's descendents sue Dr. Evil over the use of the word "Million"
Parker Brothers sued over the name 'Mr. Green' in the popular "Clue" game by the guy who invented that word.

This post brought to you by the number 3(TM), the letter P(TM) and the color yellow(TM).

Give me a break

[Anonymous Coward]

this is insane. why not just go after the makers of GOGGLES while you're at it too?

Existence-Uniqueness Theorem for Google

[davidstrauss]

I keep searching for "Professor Edward Kasner" on Google but nothing comes up. I guess he must not exist.

This, of course, raises deep philosophical questions about existence. Do things not listed on Google exist? Did anything exist before Google? Does Slashdot exist on a higher plane of being than I do because it yields more results?

Re:Is googol trademarked?

[richie2000]

How the fuck do you invent a word.

Easy: Femplesnip. It means to invent new words as you go along. So I just femplesnipped femplesnip and my descendants will cite this post as prior art.

In other news...

[Trurl's Machine]

"Now that Google's IPO is running, the company is on the verge of being sued by the family of Professor Edward Kasner who invented the word 'Googol' to describe a very big number.

In other news, the family of Professor Edward Kassner is being sued by the family of the great Russian playwright Nikolai Gogol [theatredatabase.com].

In Soviet Russia... Google Gogols you!

Perhaps Microsoft should sue Parker Bros

[Ratface]

over the frivolous use of the name Monopoly :-D

Gringo

[turgid]

Maybe google should change its name to gringo? You could go to www.heygringo.com to ask a question.

I am a gringo! [funwavs.com]

Re:Ofcourse!

[ComaVN]

If the guy keeps spinning, maybe he can be used as a source of unlimited, cheap electricity.

A two word reply....

[fallen1]

for a 10^100 money-grubbing bitch:

FUCK YOU.

This shuold be Google's answer for this suit as well as the judge's who might see the case. I personally would feel a great swell of pride if they would publish it on their front page ;-)

Re:Perhaps Microsoft should sue Parker Bros

[Anti Frozt]

You have it backwards. Parker Bros. should sue Microsoft for defimation of character as MS is clearly giving a bad name to the word Monopoly.

My initials

[eyeball]

Hey, my name is Scott Charlie Orth. i've been around long before a certain company. This gives me an idea...

Cha-ching!

Re:Baaahhh....

[TheGavster]

I mean, Google's success *must* have been due to the name. I know that the relevant results and inoffensive advertising mean nothing to me in comparison to the fact that its called Google!

My kid invented it.

[LouSir]

When my kid was about 1 she said goo goo googel. Maybe I'll just try copyright all the mumbling speech of hers when she was a baby. Please do not name a company/website ya ya ya or ba ba ba or ma ma ma. Thank you, Lou Sir

Re:How much money do they want?

[scott1853]

Tip the server??? Do you know how much these rackmounts cost!!!

Re:Baaahhh....

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I remember as a child running through the Austrian snow one January and shouting Yahooooooooooooo! So I think I'll be finding myself a bod damned lawyer and suing the asses off those Yahoo! guys. Oh, am I gonna be rich!

Oh yeah, and you bastards from alta (la) vista should be quaking in your boots. I'm in my hummer right now.

Ahnolt.

Re:Give me a break

[BlackHawk-666]

In other news, Googool family now suing every baby who utters the phrase goo goo. Parents who teach this phrase to their children without a Googool licence are being imprisioned for IP theft. They don't want money, they just want recognition.

Re:He didn't.

[Czmyt]

If anyone names their dot com company "hoinkel doinkel," my three-year-old son is going to sue their ass off!

Re:perhaps not

[gowen]

assume the company was named "Mickey Mouse Search" or "Star Trek Search"

Actually, Star Trek was the subject of the first lawsuit of this type, when Scottish mathematician John Napier [wikipedia.org] sued over the phrase "Captain's Log"

Re:Rediculous

[lga]

Jesus must be spinning in his grave....
Well he might if he was still in it.

They could take a page from the Apple/Sagan spat

[HarveyBirdman]

...and rename the site "butthead great-niece of some math professor."

Re:Are you serious?

[AndroidCat]

Booble [booble.com] isn't spelled the same either, but Google has some objections. (A "look and feel" case, heh heh.)

Re:How to bring shame to a family name, step 1.

[MarkGriz]

She must have read McBride's new book:

How To Bring Shame and Disgrace to Your Family Name
in 3 easy steps

A new word...

[BananaJr6000]

and Google is a new word, an honorific of googol.

Or as SCO would say, an unauthorized derivative and a clear case of non-literal copying.

There is no case here. A new word was invented SPECIFICALLY TO AVOID the issue of trademarking an existing word. It's done all the time. Get over it.

--
Alive and kicking in a VM

I Disagree

[AmericanInKiev]

Google clearly has capitalized on the name Google, and should be happy to share some of its irrational success by benefitting the people from which it has benefitted.

Yes - they could have used a different name - but they chose this man, his work, and his word to christen their enterprize.

Decency recommends that they show some loyal tribute in return.

I don't know for how much she is asking - but the complaint to some extent looks to raise the question of the man's work into - Very large numbers.

Google should provide the world with a sincere understaning of the root of their title and give credit if credit is due to the man who invisioned the concept (perhaps of inordinant scaleability)?.

I don't know - but that's the point - Google should be a place where among other things people can find out the meaning of the word Google.

(Can I respond try google and get the +5 funny mod myself)

If they need to go to court to figure out a way of respecting their namesake - they should.

AIK

Re:Baaahhh....

[kidgenius]

I don't know....Microsoft has done a pretty good job at trademarking the word "Window",.... :)

In other news, houses now come w/ "clear glass openings" to see out.

Re:"invented the word..."?

[saddino]

my grandchidren will be rich

Not a chance. Future corporations will just make sure they hire excellent jipnarks to name their future products.

Re:Baaahhh....

[ultrasound]

I didn't know they had snow in Austria. Wouldn't all of the kangaroos slip over? G'day mate ;-)

Blades?

[zonix]

Tip the server??? Do you know how much these rackmounts cost!!!

You should have bought blades, dude! Already tipped. :-)

z

Geekocracy

[Chemisor]

> I'm good and sick of this "lawyerocracy" we have here. I'd love to see a "geekocracy".

Surely, we must first point out the incalculable advantages of having a geekocracy. Our entire lives will be changed! Think of what will be different:

• Everyone will have 10gbps broadband.
  
• Knowledge of programming would be a prerequisite to high school graduation.
  
• Taxes will be submitted online in handcoded XML format.
  
• The legal system will be refactored to eliminate bloat, duplicate codes, and bugs, establishing the new SLS (Standard Legal System) worldwide.
  
• It would be a fedral crime to stuff a geek into a locker (punishable by a year of sex deprivation)
  
• Everyone would convert to the metric system.
  
• The calendar would be revised to eliminate all those pesky 12 and 60 factors.
  
• Everyone would start counting at 0.
  
• Normal working hours will be shifted to 4pm-4am.
  
• All products will be covered by GPL and would be available free of charge. If anyone wants to make money they would offer installation support, customization, or news services.
  
• Pizza will become the new national food.
  
• There would be endless debates on whether garbage collection is a good thing.
  
• All wars will result in complete assimilation. No civilization can resist our hordes of fusion tanks and leviathans.
  
• Killing monsters will become the national pastime.
  
• The ruling elite would have to be periodically reelected due to their inability to reproduce. This ensures that the government stays democratic.
  
• Natalie Portman will become the national symbol of hope. She will host the annual celebration of the national hot grits day.
  
• It will be a basic human right to disassemble stuff.
  
• Shorts and teeshirts will become formal attire.
  
• Linus Torvalds will be the president of the world.
  

Re:Baaahhh....

[carlos_benj]

Gee. Somebody admits they're wrong on /. and gets modded "overrated". Heck, I'd have thought some of the mods would have seen it as "insightful"....

Re:Does anybody know what they would sue under?

[Tackhead]

> It's not trademark law. The family never trademarked the term "Googol." It's not copyright law, or else a whole lot of mathematics textbooks are in trouble. For once it's not Patent law.
>
> Is there even a realm of law that would cover such a thing?

Darl McBride's Fantasy World Law?

Re:Baaahhh....

[_Sprocket_]

Well I remember as a child running through the Austrian snow one January and shouting Yahooooooooooooo!

Dude. You were stoned. And watching "The Sound of Music".

Which simply establishes that you were in the right state of mind for a lawsuit simular to the Google one.

Re:Baaahhh....

[Oliver Wendell Jones]

Nah, they should be generous and offer them 10,000 shares of stock.

Then to be evil they should sell 1 Googol shares of stocks to make their measly 10K shares worthless.

News Flash...

[bokmann]

This just in,

Several South American Countries are suing Amazon.com over the use of the name of their Rain Forest.

Washed up funnyman Yahoo Serious is suing Yahoo for use of his name.

Give me a break.

Re:Baaahhh....

[LuxFX]

Google is successful? I could never tell whether or not it was a search engine, or a one with a hundred zeros behind it. It's just so confusing! So difficult to tell!

leg break googley

[0rca]

In other news, the Kasner family also contemplating lawsuits against cricketers who earn fame bowling leg break googley bowler Shane Warne [cricinfo.com] and Anil Kumble [cricinfo.com]

apologies to non-cricket loving folks and moderators

Re:Are you serious?

[rossdee]

"Googol is a word that some kid made up to describe a big number that existed a priori. Even if you could sell a googol of something(that'd be a whole hell of a lot), you can't sell a googol itself."

Since there are only 10 to the power of 40 or so particles in the universe, you can't sell 10 to the power of 100 of anything.

You didn't hear this chick whine about Booble!

[xmuskrat]

Oh that's right, they are not going to IPO...

Oh yeah

[Cranx]

...because the word "Googol" has been an inspirational breakthrough in the world of math, and the Google search engine has been little more than a coat-tail rider.

Re:Are you serious?

[Glonoinha]

Good thing the kid was like 5 years old - if it had been a teenager or college kid he would have called that number a 'fuckload' and guess what the number one search engine on the planet would have been ... yea, a whole new paradigm.

I named my site Ziro

[Lewis Daggart]

Now a bunch of long dead Arabs are trying to sue me. Well, shoot.

Faimily Policy

[Xibby]

My family has a policy for this kind of stuff. It involves beatings.

Re:How much money do they want?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Answer : write down a figure, then add a lot of zeros. *rimshot*

Sure, How does:

$00000000000000000000000000000001 sound?

I can add a few zeros more if you like;-)

Re:Baaahhh....

[1010011010]

I have a T-Shirt from Austria. It says, simply:

Austria
There are no kangaroos in our country

It's not "google", it's "go-ogle"!

[Eryq]

Your honour, we know everyone says "google" and thinks of that 10^100 number, but really, we called our search engine "go-ogle", meaning "go look". That "google" word is just a strange coincidence...

Re:Welcome to the Global Economy.

[Snard]

Excuse me, I own the trademark to the work "global". You will need to rename this thread "Welcome to the Globle Economy."

Thank you.

Re:Geekocracy

[pommiekiwifruit]

Shorts and teeshirts will become formal attire.

In other words, everyone will have the right to bare arms.

zoobol

[essreenim]

Yep, I just thought of a new number - zoobol
its exactly 112 zeros after a one.

Im gonna sue your ass if u make a site caled zooble..

Re:zoobol

[Paradise Pete]

Im gonna sue your ass if u make a site caled zooble..

Too late: Zooble.com [zooble.com]