Parody is a specific legal defense against trademark infringement. The idea that trademark holders are always required to 'defend' their trademark regardless of context is simply false.

Given that the use here is noncommercial (Peng! is not selling a product in Google's area of business), it's almost certainly the case that Google is under no obligation to engage in any legal action. Even commercial parody can be protected, though the criteria are somewhat more complex.

Interestingly, it's easier to legally parody stronger trademarks because of public recognition of the parody - see Louis Vuitton v Haute Diggity Dog for an example. Google certainly qualifies as a strong trademark, although the parody name here isn't as memorable as 'Chewy Vuiton'.

It can still count as parody even if some people got genuinely confused. Consider that some people get fooled by articles from The Onion.

A more apt comparison would be if someone was fooled by an Onion article on the domain http://www.cnn-news.com that had CNN at the top of the page. I'd imagine the vast majority of people would simply assume that was CNN.

Exactly. I still remember this Onion article from a few years back being confused as actual news.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/28/world/iran-news-agency-duped/

> not quite sure why my comment is getting downvoted.

Kneejerk responses.

You're entirely right that Google at least has to legally take some action, as otherwise others can point at the precedent when doing actual attacks on Google trademarks.

It's worth pointing out that this view, while common, is a misconception. IANAL, but as I understand it a company need only address blatant, public infringement. If it could be reasonably argued that this is a parody (and that can at least be argued, even if you disagree), it wouldn't be considered for the purposes of abandoned trademarks.

And a minor point - "precedent" is commonly used to mean simply "that which came before" but it has a very specific legal definition (generally just decisions issued by a court) that doesn't apply here.

Has anyone ever provided an example of a brand losing its trademark status for not aggressively addressing minor/maybe/kind-of/sort-of infringement? It seems like a scary story designed to keep IP lawyers fully employed.