Google "Loses" Gmail in Europe

Hippie Hippie Shake writes to mention that Google has just lost the right to use the name 'Gmail' in Europe, according to the EU. "Daniel Giersch, a German-born 32-year old entrepreneur, has just announced that his company received a positive ruling last week from the Harmonization Office supporting his claim that "Gmail" and his own "G-mail" are confusingly similar. G-mail is a German service that provides a "gmail.de" email address, but also allows for a sort of "hybrid mail" system in which documents can be sent electronically, printed out by the company, and delivered in paper format to local addresses." It looks like "Google Mail" from here on out, at least in the Old Country."

it's not that big of a deal... is it?

[User 956]

Daniel Giersch, a German-born 32-year old entrepreneur, has just announced that his company received a positive ruling last week from the Harmonization Office supporting his claim that "Gmail" and his own "G-mail" are confusingly similar.

That's not something a few hundred million dollars can't fix.

Good for him!

[posterlogo]

...because he legitimately had use of the G-mail term in advance. But if he's smart, he'll either capitalize on the name recognition and make a really nice mail portal system, or sell to Google. Providing a somehow "inferior" product under that name might not work out so well in the long run.

Re:it's not that big of a deal... is it?

[garcia]

That's not something a few hundred million dollars can't fix.

You mean "That's not something a few hundred million dollars in stock can't fix."

Re:Gmail vs Googlemail

[Anonymous Coward]

err... not saying that was pointless but..

PING gmail.com (216.239.57.83) 56(84) bytes of data.
PING googlemail.com (216.239.57.83) 56(84) bytes of data.

well, how nice

[oohshiny]

"Daniel Giersch, a German-born 32-year old entrepreneur, has just announced that his company received a positive ruling last week from the Harmonization Office supporting his claim that "Gmail" and his own "G-mail" are confusingly similar.

So when his rather stupid venture tanks (several people have tried his kind of service before), he can at least get some money for the domain name.

Re:$250K?

[tomstdenis]

doubt it. Something tells me google isn't the company to reach out twice.

I mean yeah, it's good that the guy has character and defends his creation [G-mail that is]. But I dunno, if google wanted to give me 250K for libtom.org I'd be finding a pen.

Tom

Re:Well?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's kind of funny. If this had been a big corporation taking the name away from a little guy [wikipedia.org] everyone would be up in arms about how unjust this practice is.

Re:$250K?

[Anonymous Coward]

If he had a money-making business that's identified with the name, 250k is too low. He didn't seem to be the mom's basement type, either.

Ah, good

[JoshJ]

I'm glad to see that some courts are coming to their senses and realizing that sticking a "G" or "i" in front of something doesn't necessarily make it a trademark.

Re:Well?

[Otto]

Only if the little guy registered his domain first.

Unfortunately, in this case, denic.de isn't giving enough info in their whois lookups to tell when gmail.de was registered.

So it's hard to know who to root for.

Nothing to fix. Incorrect interpretation of right

[NRAdude]

Many are over-looking the fact that trademarks and procedure, collected under an independent title for said documents, with an independently assumed trademark that is not derived or conferred from another, is fair to proceed given their unique merits. GMail is everywhere; it's in the trees, it's with Google Mail, it's with a (G)Hermanian, and it is lawful to continue the lawful use of said trademark as long as not intending to interrupt or defraud another's regular use.

In other words, that GMail collected and utilized on the 31-st Day of the first Month in the Year 2007 at 1324 and 987-miliseconds+ATOMIC_TIMESTAMP from MAIL.GOOGLE.COM does not infringe or detract from this GMail collected and utilized on the 31-st Day of the first Month in the Year 2007 at 1324 and 987-miliseconds+ATOMIC_TIMESTAMP from GMAIL.DE. The same goes for the nonsense of people forcing their IP and trademark to compel with threats/duress/coercion for a lawful man of the Hershey or (Mike)Rowe family to change their name to somthing that isn't seen as similar (yet independent) of a name adapted to a corporation.

Does anyone remember about Blizzard persuance upon anyone seen using Starcraft(tm) or similar IP, without question of independance, yet they are injunctioned at all from pursuing the trademark helled by a reacreational vessel and off-land vessel company Starcraft? This is the same agreement between ministries over subject matter, that there are many men out there given the name "Gregory Thomas" yet this one given to me is timestamped 04/20/xxxx and is lawful for use in my matter.

Re:Well?

[Throtex]

That's not funny; it's sad. Intellectual property rights are demonized by those who don't understand them. While there are certainly intelligent arguments to be made about the scope of trademark, patent, copyright, trade secret, and antitrust law, you won't find it here.

Re:Google farts!

[rucs_hack]

I got my gmail.com address in the UK before all this trouble, and if I send an invite to myself and create a mail account for someone I can still get them gmail.com addresses.

I don't know why this is, but it's very handy.

How will this affect gmail.com?

[davidc]

This is BS. How does this affect gmail.com, registered in the US? As far as I can see, anyone anywhere in the world can sign up a gmail.com account without prejudice. The company is based in the US; they're not marketing gmail.de, it's gmail.com. It's not even g-mail.com. How can the EU prevent its citizens using gmail.com, and require that they use g-mail.de (or whatever) instead?

Re:they should brand one for the Euro market then

[iphayd]

What's really funny is that it can't really stand for (G)erman- Mail, as if it was tailored to actual Germans, wouldn't it be (D)eutschland-Mail?

Re:Nothing to fix. Incorrect interpretation of rig

[Ed Avis]

The above post reads like one of those spams that has autogenerated paragraphs of text pasted together from news reports, Great Expectations and the U.S. Constitution.