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October 21, 2005
Google Loses GMail in the UK
So maybe Google won't be taking over the world after all... Tiny $5.8M Independent Internation Investment Research (IIIR) has won in a dispute with the giant $85B Google over the Gmail trademark. As it turns out, IIIR registered the Gmail trademark several years ago. Google then went ahead and launched its own super-successful Gmail in early 2004 without checking (or perhaps ignoring) if anyone else owned the trademark. Little did they know the tiny IIIR would fight back, and to the surprise of many they won. From now on new Google Gmail users in the UK will be given a googlemail.co.uk domain, but existing users who already have a gmail.com domain will not be forced to give it up.
--Sean
Posted by Sean at October 21, 2005 10:14 AM