

Google's Gmail verboten in Germany - baha_man
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/24/no_access_to_gmail_in_germany/

======
edu
The title is misleading, they cannot use the _gmail_ brand because it was
previously owned by another company, so now they've to use Google Mail as
their brand. No surprise. I can not call my company Coca-Cola. Can I?

------
bluelu
Only a fair deal. It's however sneaky from Google that they tried to take
cancel his trademark, even though his service existed 4 years before google
entered the mail market.

~~~
ajross
Prior existence is only one of the tests for trademark validity, although I
certainly can't claim any special knowledge of this case or German trademark
law. It's fairly common in a dispute like this for both sides to make various
arguments about the other sides claims. It's certainly not "sneaky".

------
jrockway
How many German employees does Google have? It would be amusing to just close
their German office and call it gmail again.

~~~
aneesh
How would closing their German office solve anything?

Google says: "We can't provide service under the Gmail name in Germany"

~~~
jrockway
I'm pretty sure German laws only apply if Google has an office there. If they
closed their office, they could call the service whatever they wanted.

~~~
xirium
If they charge a German company to advertise on a German user's email account
and they are trading a GMail then it could be a trademark infringement. It
doesn't matter where they have offices and it doesn't matter that they don't
have control of gmail.de

Tags: [google] [googlemail] [gmail] [mail] [webmail] [german] [germany]
[trademarks] [advertising]

