Re:Groggle boggled by Google mean spirit
by anigbrowl on Thursday April 29, 2010 @07:47PM
(#1306558)
I'm sorry, I don't agree. I know trademark laws sanction appropriation of a common word for use in a brand (eg googol, yahoo, woot). And I know that a strong brand is agreed to create a secondary meaning for that term - and that brandholders must defend this secondary meaning assiduously, so as not to avoid accusations of trademark abandonment, since trademarks enjoy far less protection than copyrights in most legal environments.
Nevertheless, I think there are limits on how much adjacent linguistic territory a brand is entitled to claim, and in this particular case I think Google's reach exceeds its grasp.
You made the point (which I failed to address first time) that this is a competing search engine. I don't really agree. It bills itself thus: 'Groggle is a location driven alcohol price comparison service', and on their site they invites signups from retailers. Unless this is the result of some radical recent change, that seems very different to me from 'search'. It's selective (of the booze you want) and location-based (because you want it now). It doesn't crawl the web, but serves retailers' structured price information. you will never be able to go anywhere with it other than to the website of an participating alcoholic beverage retailer.
That is a very narrow and specific kind of service. Saying 'they're in search' is like saying Gem Hardware Co. is infringing on GE's trademark because GE manufactures electrical motors & turbines, and Gem sells some electrical power tools.
As for your point about "G_o_gle", I do not buy that all letters in a word are equally weighted like bricks in a wall. The start of a word is a much better guide to its identity than the end. Grog is only one letter different from Goog, but the sound is very different: it sounds a lot more like 'blog' than it does 'goog'. R and O have plenty of distance between them on a keyboard. Plus, I do give some weight to its pre-existing meaning - it's not a neologism or (un)creative spelling alteration, but has a well-known provenance of its own. They took a common and highly specific slang word and extended with a common suffix.
It does have some similarities to the word Google, and both companies are on the internet. Unlike you, I don't think they compete in a very similar space. And they're not aping any visual aspects of Google's mark - even a drunk person would distinguish the two with ease.
And look, it's not my name. I said it's quite likely they noted the similarity, but that was by way of acknowledging your point. I would appreciate if you disagree without SHOUTING at me.
Nevertheless, I think there are limits on how much adjacent linguistic territory a brand is entitled to claim, and in this particular case I think Google's reach exceeds its grasp.
You made the point (which I failed to address first time) that this is a competing search engine. I don't really agree. It bills itself thus: 'Groggle is a location driven alcohol price comparison service', and on their site they invites signups from retailers. Unless this is the result of some radical recent change, that seems very different to me from 'search'. It's selective (of the booze you want) and location-based (because you want it now). It doesn't crawl the web, but serves retailers' structured price information. you will never be able to go anywhere with it other than to the website of an participating alcoholic beverage retailer.
That is a very narrow and specific kind of service. Saying 'they're in search' is like saying Gem Hardware Co. is infringing on GE's trademark because GE manufactures electrical motors & turbines, and Gem sells some electrical power tools.
As for your point about "G_o_gle", I do not buy that all letters in a word are equally weighted like bricks in a wall. The start of a word is a much better guide to its identity than the end. Grog is only one letter different from Goog, but the sound is very different: it sounds a lot more like 'blog' than it does 'goog'. R and O have plenty of distance between them on a keyboard. Plus, I do give some weight to its pre-existing meaning - it's not a neologism or (un)creative spelling alteration, but has a well-known provenance of its own. They took a common and highly specific slang word and extended with a common suffix.
It does have some similarities to the word Google, and both companies are on the internet. Unlike you, I don't think they compete in a very similar space. And they're not aping any visual aspects of Google's mark - even a drunk person would distinguish the two with ease.
And look, it's not my name. I said it's quite likely they noted the similarity, but that was by way of acknowledging your point. I would appreciate if you disagree without SHOUTING at me.