No GMail in Europe any more

Entertainment news and updates blog article

4th April 2008

Google did lost GMail in Europe. A specially authorized office in agreement on the EU Internet-market (OHIM) published an order prohibiting Google to use GMail as a trademark on the territory of the European Union. This order became a logical continuation of the case, lost by Google last summer in Germany. The fact is that already in 2000 a 33-year-old German businessman Daniel Giersch registered the trademark G-mail. He also filed a suit to the court against Google in 2005, one year after the launch of the postal service GMail worldwide.
As a result, Google lost the case and GMail was renamed into Google Mail. And since Germany is a full-fledged member of the EU, the decision of banning GMail would naturally spread over other countries in Europe - as it finally happened. Google filed an appeal, but it did not work out. According to the company, many brands contain the word “mail” and, besides, GMail logo contains original set of colors used by Google, while G-Mail has a simple black-and-yellow logo. However, OHIM responded despite all that, the two brands have a common element of “GMail”, and this is the only thing that really matters.