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G stands for ‘grind’ on Google’s foreign mail trail

G stands for ‘grind’ on Google’s foreign mail trail

It emerged on 27 February that Google is facing a tough battle in its latest effort to protect its brand from dilution. The search giant, which runs the convenient, free-access email service, Gmail.com, has encountered a brick wall in the shape of China’s Gmail.cn – the ‘.cn’ suffix being a common feature of Chinese domain names. Administrated by Chinese firm, ISM Technologies, Gmail.cn uses a similar trade dress to Google’s platform, with a logo comprised of several coloured letters – so similar, in fact, that Google is attempting to buy it.

ISM, however, is not selling. An anonymous, Shanghai-based legal insider said: ‘Google has contacted Gmail.cn about the Web address and logo issue, but there is no progress so far.’

Google has stopped short of launching legal action against ISM, most likely because it is already fighting on two European fronts over similar issues. As well as experiencing problems in Switzerland with gaining sole control of the Gmail brand, it has been forced to challenge a collective of Polish poets in order to stop it from using a ‘Gmail.pl’ address.

On the question of Google starting a lawsuit in China, the legal insider says: ‘It's unlike the Polish case: The Chinese company is also an Internet service provider which provides mail services, and Gmail can literally just be referring to a 1G [or 1 gigabyte] mailbox or something like that.’

The source also argued that political tensions between America and China on IP matters would make legal action between Google and ISM unnecessarily rocky and perhaps impractical. Google may have to use more persuasive methods of safeguarding its brand.

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