What is GMail?

That depends when and where you ask the question.

To most internet users, GMail is Google's invitation-only e-mail service. An existing user must invite you to enable you to sign-up for their service, which offers e-mail 2GB of storage.

But if you were asking the question a few years ago, GMail would be the e-mail service offered by Garfield, a company named after the cartoon cat, who sold the gmail.com domain name to Google in 2004.

In Germany, GMail is a trademark belonging to internet entrepreneur Daniel Giersch, who forced Google to block access to gmail.com to German users.

And if you work in the City of London, then you may know GMail as a way of discussing research completed by Independent International Investment Research (IIIR). It's also the name of the private e-mail system used by customers of Contensis, a content management company which uses the domain name gmail.co.uk.

Who Owns the Trademark GMail?

No one owns an EC-wide trademark of "GMail" or any variety of the name. There are however, six accepted applications for the trademark, although the patent office has yet to award a registered trademark to any.

In all, three applicants made two applications each (for a variety of trademark classes) and they are Google, Daniel Giersch (who owns a German-only trademark) and Karen Griffith, from Hemel Hempstead, who is a trustee of IIIR.

In the United States, there have been six applications for the trademark. One was from an individual, Milo Crupps, of Santa Barbara; Cencourse, a Miami-based internet company; Precision Research, another internet company; Karen Griffiths (yes, her again); Google; and the Gospel Music Association.

What is the basis of the legal action against Google?

This piece of action has come about because IIIR is claiming their rights to the G-Mail name and have requested a 0.5 per cent royalty from Google from GMail's revenue. IIIR claims that their GMail service is available to 10 million users in the United States and that sharing the same name has lead to confusion among their users and their clients.

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