{"id":491269,"date":"2010-03-30T18:35:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-30T22:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techdirt.com\/articles\/20100328\/0158548748.shtml"},"modified":"2010-03-30T18:35:00","modified_gmt":"2010-03-30T22:35:00","slug":"google-sued-for-using-the-term-gadgets-tiny-company-afraid-people-will-think-they-support-google","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/491269","title":{"rendered":"Google Sued For Using The Term &#8216;Gadgets&#8217;; Tiny Company Afraid People Will Think They Support Google"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ah, more trademark insanity.  <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.ericgoldman.org\/\" >Eric Goldman<\/a> points us to the news that Google has been sued, yet again, this time over a trademark infringement claim, with a company called Firefly Digital that makes some sort of content management system that it trademarked as &#8220;Website Gadget.&#8221;  As you may know, Google&#8217;s iGoogle customized page lets you add various &#8220;gadgets.&#8221;  In fact, many of you read Techdirt via just such a gadget.  But apparently, Firefly is very upset that when you see Google&#8217;s gadgets, you&#8217;ll automatically assume that they were built by Firefly &#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.docstoc.com\/docs\/31871566\/google-gadgets-lawsuit\" >and thus, the company is suing<\/a>:<br \/>\n<center><br \/>\n<object id=\"_ds_31871566\" name=\"_ds_31871566\" width=\"450\" height=\"550\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" data=\"http:\/\/viewer.docstoc.com\/\"><param name=\"FlashVars\" value=\"doc_id=31871566&#038;mem_id=715794&#038;doc_type=pdf&#038;fullscreen=0&#038;allowdownload=1&#038;showrelated=0&#038;showotherdocs=0\" \/><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/viewer.docstoc.com\/\"\/><param name=\"allowScriptAccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><\/object><br \/>\n<\/center><br \/>\nMy favorite line in the filing?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i><br \/>\nGoogle has thereby induced purchasers and others to believe&#8211;contrary to fact&#8211;that<br \/>\nFirefly has provided, sponsored, authorized, licensed or approved Google&#8217;s business, goods, and<br \/>\nservices, or that such business, goods and services are in some way connected with Firefly.<br \/>\n<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I&#8217;d love to see the evidence that <i>any<\/i> user of iGoogle got confused and somehow thought that the gadgets were provided, sponsored, authorized, licensed or approved by Firefly.  Later in the lawsuit, Firefly claims that Google&#8217;s intention is to &#8220;deceive&#8221; users into believing there was a connection with Firefly.  Somehow, I doubt it.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/techdirt.com\/articles\/20100328\/0158548748.shtml\">Permalink<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/techdirt.com\/articles\/20100328\/0158548748.shtml#comments\">Comments<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/techdirt.com\/article.php?sid=20100328\/0158548748&#038;op=sharethis\">Email This Story<\/a><br \/>\n <br clear=\"both\" style=\"clear: both;\"\/><br \/>\n<br clear=\"both\" style=\"clear: both;\"\/><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/ads.pheedo.com\/click.phdo?s=44bf03ca1f7403f4f3826545ee8449c7&#038;p=1\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" style=\"border: 0;\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/ads.pheedo.com\/img.phdo?s=44bf03ca1f7403f4f3826545ee8449c7&#038;p=1\"\/><\/a><br \/>\n<!-- foo --><\/p>\n<div class=\"feedflare\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.techdirt.com\/~ff\/techdirt\/feed?a=oyLRCViSU5k:H_fPqZuNad0:D7DqB2pKExk\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/techdirt\/feed?i=oyLRCViSU5k:H_fPqZuNad0:D7DqB2pKExk\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.techdirt.com\/~ff\/techdirt\/feed?a=oyLRCViSU5k:H_fPqZuNad0:c-S6u7MTCTE\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/techdirt\/feed?d=c-S6u7MTCTE\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/techdirt\/feed\/~4\/oyLRCViSU5k\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ah, more trademark insanity. Eric Goldman points us to the news that Google has been sued, yet again, this time over a trademark infringement claim, with a company called Firefly Digital that makes some sort of content management system that it trademarked as &#8220;Website Gadget.&#8221; As you may know, Google&#8217;s iGoogle customized page lets you [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-491269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491269\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}