Google Loses Gmail Trademark Case

amigoro writes "A court in Germany today banned Google from using the name 'Gmail' for its popular webmail service following a trademark suit filed by the founder of G-Mail. Daniel Giersch, started using the name G-Mail in 2000, four years before Google released 'Gmail'. "Google infringed the young businessman's trademark that had been previously been registered," said the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court in its judgement."

Where are the trolls?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was waiting for some to suggest gnaaMail

Re:Major Suckage

[wikinerd]

If this case was filled in America, I wouldn't be surprised if the judge reasoned that the "collective rights" of thousands of email users surpassed the rights of a single businessman, even if he started using the name 4 years earlier.

Re:sort of makes me wish

[MyLongNickName]

[e-mail]

iMail?

[cashman73]

I think I'm going to register iMail as a trademark,. . . and then sue Apple when they launch their new iPhone/iMac/iBook/iPod/iNausea email service! ;-)

Re:Trademarking a letter is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it is totally ridiculous. In fact IBM is using THREE letters so they are triply as bad!

Re:Major Suckage

[Kristoph]

If this case was filed in America this 'single businessman' would probably be worth a discernible percentage of the NASDAQ.

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Re:sort of makes me wish

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me help you with that typo: [e-mail] [mailto]. A very nice address it is, and I'd be happy to bid $0.75 if it is spam free.

Re:sort of makes me wish

[Anonymous Coward]

It's good I never tried [e-mail]

Re:Close it down!

[Balthisar]

If I were Google I would simply shut down Google.de and the German GMail and give the whole country the big old middle finger. I bet it would only take months for local public pressure to force g-mail to get out of the way of the real Google GMail.

And if I were the entire automotive industry, I'd refuse to do business in California!

Re:sort of makes me wish

[Anonymous Coward]

Does yours get spammed a lot?

I keep getting spam for new furniture and chair repair...
--
[e-mail]

Re:sort of makes me wish

[j0nkatz]

I get spammed a lot on mine from shampoo and soap sales.

[e-mail]

Re:Legitimate Case?

[loganrapp]

Yeah, he says that now, after he got attacked and won the case.

Re:Legitimate Case?

[Monsieur_F]

Google Mail itself still says it is Beta as well.
Actually I am wondering whether the word Beta is not a trademark registered by google :)

Re:sort of makes me wish

[Errtu76]

Now that's not very nice of you, mentioning [e-mail] [mailto] 's email address. Why, if i was [e-mail] [mailto] i would be very upset now. Imagine all the email harvesting bots that'll pick up [e-mail] [mailto] as a valid email address? Poor [e-mail] [mailto] and his inbox. Well, i won't participate in that, [e-mail] [mailto] !! Rest assured that i will never give away [e-mail] [mailto] on any website and i will say to anyone using or posting [e-mail] [mailto] that they should stop it, because [e-mail] [mailto] is getting enough spam as it is!

There. You're welcome.

Google should have Googled G mail

[Alexpkeaton1010]

Pretty ironic for a search engine company.