Google’s Gmail trademark just suffered a severe blow in Europe as the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market has ruled against the search giant’s use of the Gmail name there, according to the man who opposed the mark.
In short, Google will not be allowed to use the trademark Gmail within Europe.
I’ve noticed already that UK residents use e-mail.address@googlemail.com instead of gmail.com as the domain. Gmail.de has some more details about it.
This is a huge loss for Google because of how much they have already marketed the Gmail trade name across the Internet. While Europeans and UK residents already know it as something else, it’s still a loss to which Google could have had total ownership of the trademark name across the world.
