Google Files Suit Against Froogles for Trademark Infringment
Google, after losing a battle last July to stop a shopping site from using the Froogles.com domain because it was “confusingly similar” to Google, has now filed suit against Froogles in a U.S. federal court alleging trademark infringment. Gary Price of the Search Engine Watch Blog reports that last July he posted soem info in the SEW Forums about Google asking ICANN (the domain name organization) to not allow Froogles (a discount shopping site) to use the domain because it was “confusingly similar” to Google.
“The dissimilar letters in the domain name are sufficiently different to make it distinguishable from Google’s mark,” the panel found. The name Froogles.com “creates an entirely new word and conveys an entirely singular meaning from the mark.”
Today, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports that Google has now filed suit against Froogles in a U.S. federal court alleging trademark infringment.
A David-vs.-Goliath saga pitting a Long Island entrepreneur against Internet giant Google Inc. may hinge on just that, according to papers filed this week in federal court…”Personally, I find it ironic that a company whose motto is ‘do no evil’ would put so much effort into trying to muscle me out of my business,” [Richard] Wolfe [the owner of Froogles.com] wrote in an e-mail Thursday…Google spokesman Steve Langdon said federal court was the proper venue for deciding issues of “use and registration” of the trademark “in a single proceeding.”
We’ve also tracked down the full text of the complaint that Google filed with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. You can access the filing (68 pages; PDF) here.