Google sued over Chromebook name

 

Gallery

By Nicole Kobie

Posted on 9 Jun 2011 at 09:42

A US PC-maker is trying to block the launch of Google's Chromebooks over a trademark dispute.

Isys Technologies wants Google and its partners - including Acer, Amazon, Best Buy and Samsung - to stop marketing the devices and cancel the 15 June launch.

The company said the Chromebook, a netbook-like device running Google's Chrome OS, infringes on its ChromiumPC Modular Computer - which was originally intended to run the open-source version of the Chrome OS.

In spite of our sincere efforts to resolve this matter amicably with Google, we’ve clearly reached an impasse

Bewilderingly, Isys bragged in May that it was releasing the first Chrome-based desktop computer based on its Xi3 Modular Computer.

Now, the firm now says the desktop "will not ship pre-loaded with a Google licensed OS", but will be the "world's first desktop able to run open-source, internet-based operating systems" - although it doesn't name exactly what OSes those might be.

“We do not begrudge anyone the ability to create new products and take them to market, unless they infringe on our intellectual property," said Jason A Sullivan, president and CEO of Isys Technologies.

"But in spite of our sincere efforts to resolve this matter amicably with Google, we’ve clearly reached an impasse," he said. "So for now, we feel we have no other choice than to request the assistance of the court to protect us in this very critical matter regarding ChromiumPC.”

Google wanted Speedbook instead?

The firm's lawyer, Todd Zenger, claimed Google had intended to use a different name than Chrome on its own-brand devices: the Speedbook.

"When Google’s plans to use Speedbook for a new PC hardware product were derailed by the owner of another Speedbook mark in late 2010, Google switched its behind-the-scenes efforts to Chromebook for PC hardware products," Zenger said.

Isys said it filed for tradmark registration of the ChromiumPC name in June 2010, receiving interim approval in October 2010, and claimed to have been using the name for 18 months. Google first announced the Chrome OS in 2009.

Zenger claimed Google delayed Isys' trademark registration until it could launch its own Chromebooks last month, "thereafter demanding that Isys cease and desist using its ChromiumPC mark and abandon its application for registration".

"This causes damage and irreparable harm to Isys," he said.

Google declined to comment for this story.