Seems like everyone is talking about domain names this week, the New York Times ran a story on Google and their new Alphabet brand. The story highlights concerns of other small businesses using Alphabet as a brand. They wonder how this will affect them, whether there would be legal action one contributor wondered aloud, “Who is going to sue Google ?”
Of course there is a big company with an interest in this whole Alphabet naming deal. BMW owns the domain name Alphabet.com, they gave a statement in the article which said they are not selling the domain name, or at least have no intentions to do that right now. Google can be persuasive if they want to be and could throw a lot of money at the automaker.
From the article:
At BMW, Alphabet is the name of a subsidiary that provides services to corporations with vehicle fleets. A BMW spokeswoman said on Tuesday that the automaker was not informed ahead of time of plans by Mr. Page and Mr. Brin to create a company called Alphabet and had not received any offers to buy the Internet domain or the trademark.
“We are not planning to sell the domain,” said Micaela Sandstede, a BMW spokeswoman in Munich. She described the website as a “very active” part of Alphabet’s business.
Read the full article here
unless they make them an offer they can’t refuse.
otherwise, another poor branding choice to drive someone else
millions of hits.
Besides Alphabet.com BMW has also Alphabetonline.com
The fact is THAT (this) situation is exactly why there are thousands of different classes of goods and services in Trade mark classification, so that no one company can have a monopoly on “a” word or name . I dont think that Google ™ will be stopped from using the name Alphabet as long as they do not stray into any areas of BMW’s trade mark.
BMW sells cars.
Google is developing a self-driving car. It’s their most well known non-internet project.
Perhaps they intend to put in an offer on the Company.
Of course most customers will be able discern the difference between a BMW and an Automated Shoebox.
I just bought Alphabet.Gifts
I want to develop it for the charity / donation website for orphans/Disadvantaged children from the 3rd world countries who need basic education, food and shelters for compassion and humanitarian basis.
I don’t think my Alphabet.Gifts will infringe any Google or BMW trademarks!
What do you think?
@Raymond. Nope not at all, no problem. By the way, I did see a piece on the news yesterday (in UK) that quoted Google as saying that they would NOT actually be trading/branding the name “Alphabet” it simply is going to be a holding/umbrella company , so I doubt very much that they will be going on any domain buying spree for it. I think that the media has overhyped the whole thing as if Google is changing its name entirely etc ,IT IS’NT apparently.
Everybody knows Victoria’s Secret brand, but 99+% of the customers have NO CLUE that the umbrella company for this brand is LBrands (lb.com). So don’t get excited about Alphabet. It’s nothing just an umbrella company.
P.S.: Their choice of abc.xyz is stupid anyway, but they obviously wanted to do something crazy, so it makes sense. They will regard that soon or later. The best advise is still: “Stick with .com!”
regret (typo)
And Cisco had no intention of selling its iPhone mark. Fujitsu would never sell its “iiPod” mark. The holding company in Florida would never sell its Xbox mark to Microsoft. The owner would never sell its domain dropbox.com to Dropbox.
BMW will never sell BMW.com, but it will sell Alphabel.com to Google. It will either be a straight price or a hybrid agreement involving the license of cars and/or telematics.
Disclaimer: this is a prediction. No “inside” information.
Please note all the entities and owner did sell, notwithstanding prior statements to the contrary.
Also, please excuse my typos – should be ipod and alphabet.com.
My fingers are too big for these keys on my mobile 🙂
That is why small business owners should register trademarks for their brands.