Board Game Maker Sues Google, Claiming Trademark Infringement

from the publicity-stunt dept

Yehuda Berlinger points out that a board game company in South Africa that has a Cricket-themed board game called “Googly” is suing Google over trademark, claiming that Google’s registration of the google.co.za domain name violates its trademark. Of course, as the site writing about the story notes, no moron in a hurry would ever confuse the two (though, I’m unaware of whether or not South Africa accepts the moron in a hurry test for trademarks). My guess is that this is really just a publicity stunt by the board game maker, (correctly) realizing that this little lawsuit would get them some press.

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Companies: google

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Comments on “Board Game Maker Sues Google, Claiming Trademark Infringement”

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18 Comments
Simon Lynch (user link) says:

---and you rise....

Surfing a sure sword of Damocles. Screwed if you don’t report it, even more screwed if you do. The surge of PR-motivated legal actions now means that this is becoming a weapon in every half-turned-on PR muppet’s armoury. What to do? Ignore it and no-one realises that this is happening and the cost of frivolous lawsuits continues. Pay attention and help ‘encourager les autres’. Bad news any which way it goes. Maybe there should be some sort of co-operative effort to kidnap botnets from the bad guys and use them to attack the attention-seeking litigators. Anyone remember ‘The Equalizer’?

JM says:

The curse of the bell curve

Let me tell you, being a South African myself, I am somtimes amazed at the ignorance and stupidity of my fellow countrymen. Not only does South Africa have some damn smart people, but we also boast some of the most stupid the universal gene pool have to offer. This is definately a publicity stunt as these guys have been around since 1989(?) without building a major brand awareness. I hope Google gives these guys the hiding of their lives – and kick them out of their site listings 🙂

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