Google name might lose trademark protection due to it's trademark becoming common public parlance.
Practical implication for webmasters/domain players: Current federal law protects against retaining domains that have trademarked elements. IF the trademark protection disappears due to the mark entering the common common vocabulary, the legal protection against such domain registrations disappears. This might have already happened since the term "google" is now a verb per the 11th edition of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary
"Google risks losing the value of its corporate trademark, he pointed out, if it becomes part of everyday speech.
Google appreciates the problem. In its 2005 annual report to investors, the Mountain View, Calif., company noted that "there is a risk that the word 'Google' could become so commonly used that it becomes synonymous with the word 'search.' If this happens, we could lose protection for our trademark, which could result in other people using the word 'Google' to refer to their own products."
Full story here:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...home-headlines