An article in USA Today states that Google has lost its ICANN challenge to Froogles.com owner, Richard Wolfe. Google tried making the case that Wolfe’s Froogles.com was infringing upon its Froogle.com shopping site and the Google trademark because the domain names were too similar to each other. A panel of three New York judges voted 2 to 1 to dismiss the case. According to USA Today, “Froogles.com name will remain with Richard Wolfe, a disabled Holtsville, N.Y., carpenter who started the Web shopping site in March 2001, before Google introduced Froogle in December 2002.”
In a separate hearing with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Wolfe has challenged Google’s use of the Froogle as infringing upon his Froogles mark.
According to Wolfe, “”It still amazes me that I should have to go through this at all. I started my shopping service called Froogles almost two years before Google started a shopping service called Froogle. What more does anyone need to know?” Google had previously filed 18 other domain name complaints with the ICANN panel and this is the first that they’ve lost.
Apparently, the owners of the Halloween website, Boogle, the people search site, Whoogle and the animal park site, Zoogle are rethinking their domain names right now. You never know when Google will hire the attorney site Soogle to baffle, befuddle and bewilder you into submission.
