Generic Disease !

Whether or not you are tinkering with unhealthy levels of enthusiasm for IP law, the truth is that at some stage in life one does THINK!

Fine, I know I revel in sarcastic humor, but what good is life without a joke or two. Right, so having had that matter settled, I can mimic Sherlock Homes and say. “Watson, I am troubled by a certain fact”. (And if Watson knew this particular Sherlock – wannabe, he’d probably say, “What’s new about that, Dingo!”)

Growing up in a developing country, as a 10 year old, I never anticipated the effect of my sheer lack of knowledge upon the ideals of my adulthood. Firstly, for the life of me I never gave it a second thought when I would innocently strut up to the man who did our photocopying and say, “Bhaiya, please iske do Xerox banado!”(Brother, please make two copies of this). BLASPHEMOUS! I can almost hear J.J. Rowling screaming in my head – IGNORAMUS! IGNORAMUS!

Well, I didn’t know better and though that it is no defense, there is a certain truth in it. So, I thought maybe it would be worth talking about the simple mistakes we make which are no longer acceptable in today’s day and age of “free” access to abundant knowledge. After all one can simply google it!

Ah! The precious word – googling.

It was the entire matter of the word google, which aroused the doctor in me to declare that – Now this is truly a generic disease.

Actually, on second thought (that wretched quilt) a lawyer should profess honesty so I’ll be just that. I ain’t no doctor. But a hypochondriac I am, in plenty!!! So maybe I can speculate, but avoid being chased down by the AMA for providing a diagnosis that might not exist.

The Merriam Dictionary Online when searched for the word google gives the following information –

One entry found for google.

Main Entry: goo·gle
Pronunciation: 'gü-g&l
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): goo·gled; goo·gling /-g(&-) li[ng]/
Usage: often capitalized
Etymology: Google, trademark for a search engine
: to use the Google search engine to obtain information about (as a person) on the World Wide Web


Oh how my heart bleeds for this....

Usually, for a word to qualify as a good trademark there are certain factors to be taken into consideration. Those factors are that –

• The word preferably is unique
• It has no particular meaning
• The quality of course of the product it is representing must itself be worth remembering
• There should be no likelihood of confusion with competitive marks
• That the word is not a descriptive one
• Definitely not some personal name
• And lastly, not something offensive
  

So what went wrong? Nothing. Well nothing which was not predictable; even though all precautions were taken.

The Company chose to call itself Google.Inc. Well and good. After all, it means (meant) nothing until they created the word, it’s original, not descriptive, is easy on the tongue and the service is great.

Alas, we do become the victims of our own desires. Popularity always comes at a price. So as millions of people all over the world clicked away in a frenzied fashion, the path for doom was set. I can almost hear the high picthed assistant swqueaking "I'll just google it".

Google anticipated this. No dum-dum, not the assitant or her level of squeakiness ofcourse, but the fire threatening to undermine its superiority! As a pledge to safeguard all it could it fought tirelessly and the result was that google became a verb and Google became the trademark.

In theory, the terms of this agreement is quite understandable. In practice however, it is something different. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. So they did. Google knew that it is virtually impossible to fight this mammoth tidal wave. However, all was not lost to the consenting party. After all, it only brings them more opportunity to be prevalent in the minds of the people and at the same time continued to keep their trademark. So what if it is just a matter of height...of the letter G! They kept it, didn’t they? Good Job!

Unfortunately, in the case of Xerox and the example of folly, like the one I indulged in; those are the kinds of mishaps one does try to protect itself from. In India, majority of the populace believes, to date, that Xerox is what a photocopy is called. It is probably impractical for Xerox to hunt down, in the dark and formidable alleys of my country, the last of the little yellow booths boldly advertising and promising the Xerox. The costs are too high and the promise of total annihilation of such offending booths stands alone on a shaky ground.

So the only other way for the norm to change, is for people to be educated and aware of the correct practice. Given that many young-lings get caught up with IP infringement issues with software and also that in a few cases it could be, simply because of ignorance, it might not be a terrible idea to introduce basics at school level, in order to culture tomorrow to a more conducive environment.

My favorite childhood character however explains the situation much better than I do. And it goes something like this –

Holmes said, "Watson, look up into the sky and tell me what you see."

Watson: "Astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Theologically, it tells me that God is great and that we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, it tells me that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. What does it tell you?"

Holmes: "Somebody stole our tent."

So I guess for Google the diagnosis could conclude that –

Legally, you tried your best.
Theoretically, you settled for something less.
Practically,
you just got to admit,

Somebody did steal your tent!

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*The joke was adapted from the following website-
http://members.aol.com/lyngperry/humor/joke03.htm*