It looks like Google’s attempt to trademark the Nexus One name has been denied. The acquisition was filed on December 10th of last year, and Nothing has come from it yet. Oh, wait, a refusal did. Right.
Nexus has already been trademarked. It was granted in late 2008 to Integra Telecom (who in the hell are those guys?). This is completely different that what we were expecting. Initially, it was thought that Google would be infringing on the Philip K. Dick book, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Which was later adapted to film as Blade Runner. The family of Dick complained, saying that Google stole the Nexus name from them. It just seems interesting that although it may have been ripping off the film, Google was blocked by something so different.
The refusal states that there are three reasons as to why the trademark has been rejected:
In this case, the following factors are the most relevant: similarity of the marks, similarity of the goods and/or services, and similarity of trade channels of the goods and/or services.
The goods and/or services of the parties need not be identical or directly competitive to find a likelihood of confusion.
The applied-for mark encompasses the registered mark. Likelihood of confusion is often found where the entirety of one mark is incorporated within another.
Google has a right to fight the refusal, and they probably will. Whether this means if they are going to win it is anyone’s guess. If they do fight this, and are some how granted the trademark, than guess what? You’ve got a writer’s disgruntled family after you now. It doesn’t look like Google has much intentions to stop branding their devices with the Nexus name, but soon, they may be forced to. I wonder what they will rename their series of phones if they must change the name. Yoda 2?
I say, go forward, Google. If the Dick family gets pissed, just de-index every page with Blade Runner in it. Sounds like a real problem solver to me.
[Via: NexusOne.co.uk]