Just Google it. Can you Google the score? Have you Googled the restaurant’s reviews? These are all common phrases in today’s internet-reliant society, and it’s entirely due to the creation of Google and its widespread...more
Death by genericide is a painful way to go, for trademarks that is. When the public comes to think of a trademark as the common word for a product or service -- as opposed to identifying its exclusive source -- the trademark...more
Domain name registration is usually a good first step to cement trade name and mark ownership. In a previous blog we reminded readers that possession, even in Intellectual Property matters, is nine-tenths of the law...more
In a well-reasoned opinion, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals recently held that the GOOGLE trademark has not suffered death by genericide – even if the public uses it as a verb for searching the Internet. The case before...more
On May 16, 2017, internet search engine and content provider Google Inc. was handed a win by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Elliot v. Google Inc. The court ruled that the GOOGLE trademark had not...more
You may know that “aspirin,” the word commonly used to describe acetylsalicylic acid, was once a trademark – i.e., brand name – for the acetylsalicylic acid made by one company: Bayer. The word “aspirin” lost its trademark...more