Google may not be able to use Gmail brand in Germany

Google may not be able to use Gmail brand in Germany

Search engine giant Google has lost a legal battle and they may no longer be able to use the Gmail brand for their web mail service in Germany.

The company lost a lawsuit against a young German entrepreneur named Daniel Giersch who claims that he has the copyright on the term Gmail for an e-mail service he has been developing for seven years.

Giersch claims that he has used the term G-mail since 2000 which means that he had been using the term four years before Google launched its Gmail service.

Incidentally, Google continues to fight a legal battle against him with cases filed in Spain, Portugal and Switzerland.

Giersch has denied that he is trying to blackmail Google into paying him a bounty to handover the copyrighted term. He said: “Neither G-Mail nor I can be bought.”

Google incidentally is already using Google Mail term for their Gmail service in some European countries.