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"We are not evil" - Google v. Froogles Lawsuit

The website froogles.com - registered in December 2000 by Mr. Wolfe- seeks to attract "frugal" shoppers by offering a wide variety of quality merchandise at discounted or sale prices. In 2002 Google launched a comparison-shopping site of its own, called Froogle.com. In Google's pending application to register the mark FROOGLE in the United States Patent and Trademark Office ("PTO"), Mr. Wolfe filed a Notice of Opposition on March 24, 2004, thus angering Google. Google asked an arbitration panel of the ICANN (the domain name organization) to not allow to use the domain because it was "confusingly similar" to Google. The panel ruled in Wolfe's favour. According to the panel, the froogles.com domain name is not confusingly similar to the GOOGLE mark.  The dissimilar letters in the domain name are sufficiently different to make it distinguishable from the GOOGLE mark because the domain name creates an entirely new word and conveys an entirely singular meaning from the mark. The decision can be found at: http://www.arb-forum.com/domains/decisions/275419.htm.  

Google now has filed suit against Froogles in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn alleging trademark infringment. In the suit, Google claims that it is the "senior user of marks that incorporate the formative " -- OOGLE" for Internet search services." The Complaint can be found at: http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/googlevfroogles.pdf

 

 

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