Man Sues to Make "Google" Generic, So He Can Cybersquat in Peace

Google is one of the best known brands in the world and the word "google" is a synonym for online search pretty much everywhere. To many people, Google is the internet, so it's safe to say the term is quite well-known and used. So much so that one individual reckons that the word is so widespread it has become generic and, as such, Google should lose its trademark.

You can sort of see where this comes from, the term can be thought of as being generic, it is so common it has replaced the regular word used to describe it, just like "xerox." Xerox hasn't lost its trademark and you can probably figure out why.

But why would someone all of a sudden want to get the term branded as generic and have Google lose its trademark, in the first place, and why would that someone actually spend money in court to do this?

Well, as you've probably figured out, this someone has several domains containing the term "google," such gems as "googlegaycruises.com" or "googledonaldtrump.com."

Google will have no trouble taking ownership of those domains, as long as it has its trademark. In fact, Google reclaims several of this type of domains on a regular basis. Very recently it got its hands on several hundred domains like this, including the coveted googleclooney.com, which, strangely, still works.

It's not much of a hassle for Google either, all it has to do is file a complaint with the National Arbitration Forum. For a company as Google, winning these cases isn't hard.

But if Google were to lose the trademark, it would have no case against these domains. Companies have lost trademarks in the past, "zipper" and "aspirin" for example, after the terms became so common they were used to describe the same products made by any company.

That's not going to happen to Google any time soon, people do use "google" to mean online search and some may even say they've "googled" something on Bing, but everyone associates the name with the brand and the company.