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Google sued for The Android name

SocialStream [PersonRank 7]

Saturday, May 2, 2009
15 years ago3,429 views

Google and 47 other international corporations have been sued in a US District Court for trademark infringement over their use of the word "Android."

To Google, Android is the name of its open-source, Linux-based operating system for phones and mobile devices that it introduced in November of 2007.

To Erich Specht, a software developer and internet applications service provider in the Village of Palatine, Illinois, Android is the part of the name of his company, Android Data, for which he was granted a trademark in October of 2002 by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

[snipped]

Source:http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/05/01/google_android_trademark/

Tadeusz Szewczyk [PersonRank 10]

15 years ago #

Obviously this guy is right. Sadly huge corporations like Google seldom care for who used a name first. They're just too big and powerful. At least they should have offered him a decent amount of money for the Trademark. it's not like they can't afford it. Googlevil.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

15 years ago #

Considering that "android" is a mere plain word from the dictionary (meaning "An automaton that is created from biological materials and resembles a human") I think nobody should own it in that sense. The word even precedes Erich Specht's use, of course:

<<The term was first mentioned by St. Albertus Magnus in 1270 and was popularized by the French writer Villiers in his 1886 novel L'Ève future, although the term "android" appears in US patents as early as 1863 in reference to miniature humanlike toy automations.>>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_science

Juha-Matti Laurio [PersonRank 10]

15 years ago #

Thanks that this was shared,
I was posting
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2241599/google-sued-android-name
but Blogoscoped was not accessible during the last hours here.

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