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This seems to be another case where an American company doesn't understand that American law does not apply in other countries. It also seems that the lawyers
by wahlis 14y ago
This seems to be another case where an American company doesn't understand that American law does not apply in other countries.
It also seems that the lawyers where harassing the staff so much that they didn't want to continue their work.
- biot 14y agoI can't be bothered to look it up, but no doubt Google has a registered trademark for their name in Sweden. Swedish trademark law applies in Sweden, so I'm not sure what role Google being an American company plays in any of this. MySQL AB likely would have raised a similar objection if some American institution were considering using a variant of MySQL to describe a generic database. That wouldn't have made MySQL AB a Swedish company that doesn't understand that Swedish law doesn't apply in other countries; it would have been a multinational company protecting its international trademark.
- wahlis 14y agoIt might be that the American trademark law covers what goes in a dictionary but Swedish trademark law does not. So no matter what Googles' lawyers think they can not legally influence the decision. But they can obviously be annoying enough to create influnce.
- rohansingh 14y ago> It might be that the American trademark law covers what goes in a dictionary but Swedish trademark law does not [citation needed]
- adfadf 14y ago17 § The publication of dictionaries, handbooks or other similar printed publications is scripture writers, editors or publishers, at the request of the holder of a registered trademark, required to ensure that the brand is not reflected in the document without showing that the mark is protected by registration. The same applies if such publication is made available electronically by the person referred to in Chapter 1. 9 § Freedom of Expression. Anyone who does not comply with a request under the first paragraph is required to contribute to a correction published in the manner and to the extent that is reasonable and to fund this. -- (in swedish) http://www.riksdagen.se/sv/Dokument-Lagar/Lagar/Svenskforfattningssamling/Varumarkeslag-20101877_sfs-2010-1877/ http://www.riksdagen.se/sv/Dokument-Lagar/Lagar/Svenskforfat... The way I read it, you are allowed to put a trademarked entry/word in a dictionary, but you need to say that a term is trademarked (basically put a ™ after it) if the owner requests it. It doesn't say anything about forcing it to be defined by the text of the trademark definition, or the trademark owner being able to pull it out of the dictionary.
- taneliv 14y agoI don't know about Swedish law, but out of principle, even stupied IP laws should protect the things they are set to protect, or the laws should be overturned. Given that the Language Council (Språkrådet, right?) is trying to _regulate_ language, I think that trademark protection should be _considered_ in this case. This wouldn't be the case if this was a purely descriptive dictionary. OTOH, looking at the Council's new entries from earlier years http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spr%C3%A5kr%C3%A5dets_nyordslista http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spr%C3%A5kr%C3%A5dets_nyordslis... which have for example "facebooka" and "twittra", so I find Google's objection quite weird.
- adfadf 14y agoSpråkrådet doesn't regulate the language. The dictionary that they publish is purely describing the general usage. That is, if it is a word that is in common use it should be in the dictionary with the common definition.