Comments on: Behind Google's German courtroom battle

A local business owner is fighting with the search giant for the right to use the term "Gmail." So far, he's winning.

[fear_and_loathing]

that's a tough one.

Doesn't the domain make a difference?
Google uses gmail.com, Giersch uses gmail.de.
You can go to whatever.com/.org/.gov/.net and have 4 different
things, how is this any different?
If Giersch doesn't own the gmail.com domain, how does he have
a case?

[umbrae]

Trademarks don't care about extensions...

It is still cybersquatting if you get target.net, or other trademarks. Just because it is .de does not mean it is a seperate entity. The issue is consumer confusion. Rememeber whitehouse.com vs whitehouse.gov? How many kids have gotten porn thinking they were going to email the president.

[disco-legend-zeke]

Not the same business.

The two businesses are not the same.

It's like the post office claiming it owned the word MAIL

[bigstinker]

Domain name vs. trademark

No, the domain name does not make the difference. An established trade mark superesedes domain name ownership. This has been clearly demonstrated in *many* cases now, for instance in the case of the guys who had registered cocacola.(***) and the rulings were cut and dry, that no matter whether the Coca Cola Corp ever actually wanted to use those domains did not matter, but somebody else owning and/or using such domains would infringe.

[Nchantim]

Gmail

Except that "G-Mail" is confusingly similar to GMail which stood for Gateway Mail and was used to send email through Bitnet before the term "internet" was ever coined.

[ccarey]

Come On

The guy is married to Kelly Rutherford and his life is already charmed give up the fight and let us have our email already, just be sure to get some nice publicity on your way out. Maybe Google can buy the whole company for a few million.

[burlap]

I hope he never gives in

Here is an enterprising young man, who has built a business through his own effort and intelligence. Now a big company comes in and tries to bully him. How can everyone see this as something he is doing wrong. He had the name first. It is his. Let google figure out another name.

I hope he never gives in.

[stevejobless]

I wonder...

David v Goliath...

It would actually be nice to see all the corospondences that has passed between the two camps before judging...

[Far Star]

I was on his side till ...

I read the final line of the article:

"I want this to stop, but not by giving up. I want this to stop only by shutting down Gmail."

So now this guy is trying to put himself over how many people that use Gmail!?

Sorry but if he was truly only out to protect his name he'd have the same consideration for the thousands of Gmail users he's trying to shaft. To say (even if translated poorly) that he wants Gmail shutdown shows that he has more on his agenda than simple trademark right protection.

Until he gets off his high horse I'm going to have to side with Google on this one, as much as that pains me to say (and yes I have a gmail account).

Peace.

[Heebee Jeebies]

You go Mr. Giersch. God bless you! (nt)

(nt)

[AnimeFan5]

Google should sue them all for extortion!

The domain gmail.com was created on Aug 12, 1995 by the people at garfield.com to be used as a free e-mail service similar to what hotmail was offering and to what GMail currently is. The internet archive shows what there webpage looked like in 1998 and you can see that G-Mail is present.
http://web.archive.org/web/19981212025151/http://www.garfield.com/
This predates the German man's trademark. Google approached the people at garfield and purchased the domain from then in good faith thereby transferring all rights to GMail going back to 1995 to google. All the people who filed trademark rights to GMail in the U.S. and the rest of the world after google made the announcement that they were starting the service are simply opportunist and should be charged with extortion.

Countries

We have these things called... countries... nowadays. Trademarks in one country dont usually apply to other countries. The domain could have been registered in 1899 in the US ... that has little to do with whether or not 'gmail' can be used in Germany legally.

[PixelRGB]

Names, and Times

If gmail was there first, and a small party business started the
service, they should have the ultimate decision on which Google
is asking to do, even though google was a university project, at
least I hope it was, for the sake of a search engine. Now they
are going into email services, if they have the hardware for it,
and if the people want it in that area. the DNS and netdress
elements should be completely different, google should have
something like "[e-mail]" short for
"[e-mail]"

That would solve many problems and restore the peace.

-Alex

[floobydoo]

check out this Giersch job opening

http://cc.msnscache.com/cache.aspx?q=3990171289098&lang=en-US&mkt=en-US&FORM=CVRE2

To paraphrase:

"I need someone to do all the work for my PhD thesis for me, including raising all the money for the research, as well as act as my personal chaffeur. I expect you to have a first class wardrobe, and oh yeah, I'm only going to pay you 1500 Euros a month."

Gee, what an opportunity! This certainly calls into question the sort of person this Giersch guy is. CNET journalists ought to do more research before they write their articles.

[chuck_whealton]

Re: Check out this Giersch job opening

OK, admittedly that's not good, but is his case against Google wrong?

I don't believe it is - not in the least.

Charles R. Whealton
Charles Whealton @ pleasedontspam.com

[andrewholden]

Assistant

Still for an assistant about 2000 USD a month can´t be all that bad? And it also says it will be extend if they are successfull.

"Dont be evil"

Cha, right. Google's proving to be just as 'evil', if not more so, than most other corporations.

Give the guy a billion dollars, Google. Stop being cheap bastards. He beat you to the trademark, so either buy it from him or live with it.

[dingleberry420]

evil?

Evil would be starting companies that are the same as his and running him out of business. They offered him 250k for the name, his business is a lot smaller and would definitely benefit from 250k influx of cash. HE is just being a greedy *****.

[Too Old For IT]

Google already bought the name once

They should counter-sue him back to the stone age.

[hawkeyeaz1]

Pardon?

"... that he's not out to block use of Gmail on a broad scale."

"... I want this to stop only by shutting down Gmail."

Pardon? Can [Giersch] please speak with a little more of a forked tongue?

Or did he just 'forget' to say *in Germany, Norway, Sweden, and Moranaco?*

[Too Old For IT]

Based on this two-faced speech

He should chuck his PhD and go to law school. Or into politics.

[dradzone]

The Garfield site is not applicable to this case. The German business was established and running when Google tried, honorably enough, to buy it. He does not want to sell it and this is not a case of cybersquatting, though it may be a bit like Nabaoth's Vinyard. Google should just accomodate itself to not using gmail which is silly anyhow in germany. Tthe problem I have with gmail is it requires a whole extra step as opposed to Yahoo or Hotmail...or aol/aim . There is nothing sacrosanct about it having to be Google's.