New Legal Threat To GMail

wellington writes "Google is facing a renewed threat of legal action from a company that claims to own the intellectual property rights to its GMail e-mail service. Independent International Investment Research, a British company that specialises in research and has several leading City investment banks as clients, argues that it launched "G-Mail web based email" in May 2002."

Fight Google?

[linuxinit]

Ha! As much as I'd love to root for the little guy... I don't think they can fight Google... :( Google is getting pretty big lately. I can't help but wonder about some of the rumours that I've heard...

Re:Yeah, but...

[Rabid_Llama]

not anymore

Re:Fair's fair...

[porksoda]

Let's see, a free email service generating $0 profit. 50% of $0 equals $0

you kidding me? those AdSense things generate what people in the biz refer to as a shitload of cash simply due to the sheer volume of people seeing them (and it helps that they're targeted to what your mail's about). sure, it's a free service but it's not like they're losing money on it or something.

Change to GoogleMail?

[Sp00nMan]

Why doesn't Google just change the name from "Gmail" to "GoogleMail". They already have the domain for googlemail.com, and I think it would be a better branding option anyways.

I smell FISH

[Anonymous Coward]

What reason did this company have for naming it "gmail?" Where's the "G" in their company?

You can't copyright a letter. Perhaps TFA was in error; it certainly wasn't very clear.

I wish people would stop talking about "IP." Intelectual "property" is not property. If you're talking about a copyright infringement, don't say "my IP rights were violated," say "my copyright was infringed.

I'm talking to those of you who are journalists or think you are. Er, wasn't there a /. article about how journalists are ignorant fucktards just yesterday?

This sounds like a trademark issue. Did this company register the trademark with Germany or the EU? Yes? Then case closed, rule in the little guy's favor. No? Then case closed, Google wins.

But again, why did they want "gmail" and why does it matter to them? It smells like they're looking for a little publicity. I hope Google crushes them like the cockroach they appear to be.

Stupid issues

[LiquidCoooled]

If a trademark is worthy of a multi million dollar claim, then it should be higher in the search engine listings than the news about the lawsuit.

It just feels wrong otherwise.

Re:Two letters

[ifwm]

Question then.

If you're ok with "GoMail" which is ONE character different from G-Mail, then why aren't you ok with GMail, which is also ONE character different?

Repeat after me: There's no such thing as "IP"

[Anonymous Coward]

There is nothing called "Intellectual Property".

Either you say:
Trademark
Copyright
Patent

But "Intellectual Property" is not a term you can use intelligently, only as a way to further the company propaganda-machine. This example clearly shows it is not suitable for intelligent readership. I heard this from RMS last time he visited Norway.

Re:Sounds like bull

[DJ Rubbie]

Interestingly, this British Company had to pick May of 2002 as the claimed launch date for their service. Take a look at the whois information for whois g-mail.com

Registrant:
                Google Inc. (DOM-1287346)
                1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
                Mountain View CA 94043
                US

Created on..............: 2002-May-20.
Expires on..............: 2008-May-20.
Record last updated on..: 2004-Nov-01 09:49:32.

gmail.com, on the other hand, has been registered for a little while (since the 90's), wish I can find out since when it was transfered to Google.

This company does not own gmail.co.uk or g-mail.co.uk either.

Qmail

[erroneous]

It's always interesting to turn these stories around and wonder how slashdot would react if the litigant were a beloved cause-celebre and the plaintiff a moustachioed villain.

Like, for instance, if Microsoft released a mail product called "qmail".

Seriously, do you think the same people would be posting "it's just a letter Q!"

Re:The letter 'G'

[16K Ram Pack]

I too want to see litigious bastards like these be wiped out with legal costs. The more that happens, the less cases we will get.

To me, there's a clear difference between deliberately trying to piggy back on someone's name, and co-incidence.

Re:Fair's fair...

[Marc2k]

It's not about a patent. It's about a trademark. Which they're clearly infringing, at least in the UK. That's what happens when you trump things up, and call trademark disputes "Intellectual Property battles".

Re:The letter 'G'

[Anonymous Coward]

I have always been under the impression that from trademark disputes there need a few conditions regardless of the simililarity of the name:
1. Serve the Same Market Segment
2. Possible Confusion

and perhaps

3. Intent to create confusion

A look at www.gmail.co .uk shows that this form of "Gmail" is only availible to those that sign up for this special Consentius program which is only availible on the coperate level (unless after 10 minutes I missed the a link or any info...)

So in comparision we have Googles "Gmail" which is free, public, only email, and is very clearly marked on every page as comming from Google

On the other, we have this "G-mail" which is tied into a coperate program which I assume costs a decent amount of money and is clearly not from Google.

I don't see how they have much of a case since it would be nearly impossible for anyone to actually confuse the two services or substitute Gmail for "G-mail"

Re:G-Mail?

[Phisbut]

You can have Nova the car and Nova the TV show with both being trademarked and neither infringing on the other.

Just like you have Apple Corp. in the music business and Apple Computer in the computer business, and one doesn't play in the other's... ... oh wait...

In germany is already Google Mail

[ccozan]

Since a few months they changed the logo on the top left to a "Google Mail" logo, no longer "Gmail". So has a court ruled. See http://mail.google.com/mail/help/images/googlemail .gif [google.com]
You can see that the domain serving the service is not gmail.com but mail.google.com.

So i think, this UK company has seen the success of this action in Germany and tries to profit in the same way.

Sincerelly, i don't really care how is it named, "Google Mail" makes more sense to me, even if i pronounce it as "geemail".

Gmail is not even a good name anyway

[yanndug]

It's always a struggle for me to give my gmail e-mail address. I have to spell it. People ask if it is g-e-e. etc. I have to explain "G", as in "Google" In French, it's worse, because "G" in English is pronounced like "J" in French. A real hassle. I wish the service was called Google Mail and that the all the gmail adresses would be converted to @google.com. Everybody knows that word. Everybody would understand that...

There's yet another GMAIL!

[callipygian-showsyst]

There's another instance of Gmail, too! Ghirardelli Chocolate [robert.to] has a Gmail service! As of two weeks ago, they were still calling it G-MAIL, and their use of the term goes back several years. I don't know if they've ever registered the trademark.

Re:The letter 'G'

[Tanktalus]

A number of years ago, Walt Disney Corp sued the owners of West Edmonton Mall over trademark infringement. This is because Disneyland has a "Fantasy Land" section to their Anaheim location, and West Edmonton Mall had an indoor amusement park named "FantasyLand." The lawsuit was for $1. Disney won. The indoor amusement park is now called "GalaxyLand".

Meanwhile, West Edmonton Mall still has an attached hotel which is still called "FantasyLand Hotel".

That said, many people have heard of both DisnleyLand and W.E.M. - I've never even heard of IIR before this article.

Re:Fair's fair...

[bleckywelcky]

You joke, but IIR is already estimating how much their should receive for the mark. Looking at their website: www.iirgroup.com [iirgroup.com] and navigating through their press releases, you can find this one [iirgroup.com] entitled GmailTM web-based email trade mark valuation report. Guess how much they are estimating? Directly from the PDF: $48million to $64million. How did they arive at this number? Well, Google's annualized revenues are $3,224million. And they pulled 0.5% out of the air as a "conservative" royalty rate (because we know that all of Google's revenues are due to ads placed in GMail), which gives us about $16million. And then they feel they deserve 3x to 4x that amount, and tada! We arrive at $48million to $64million. Now that is the most solid reasoning I have ever seen.

Re:G?

[Elrac]

Google has, in fact, already quietly renamed their service to GoogleMail in Germany, where some other shmuck laid claim to the G. Pre-existing GMail accounts in Germany, such as my own, were left unchanged, but for the past month or so, new accounts have magically become GoogleMail accounts.

I guess nobody thought to make a fuss on /. over it when it happened here. I was annoyed, but WTF?

Re:Why so long

[ceejayoz]

I'll wager that 15 months of communication was along the lines of "we'd sue, but we'll take a cash settlement instead..."

I mean, SCO communicated prior to suing, too, but that doesn't mean they were acting in good faith.

Re:G?

[Anonymous Coward]

I just like the fact that Wendy's owns the phrase "Hot N Juicy".