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From tomorrow all new users who sign up for the email service will get addresses ending in googlemail.co.uk rather than gmail.com but existing subscribers will keep their address.

Independent International Investment Research (IIIR) has used the Gmail name since 2002, two years before Google launched its service. IIIR had been seeking a payment from Google in the region of £25mn to £35mn in exchange for permitting it to retain the Gmail name. However Google decided that it was not worth that much.

'This company [IIIR] has been very focussed on a monetary settlement,' Google said in

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a statement. 'We went back and forth trying to settle on reasonable terms, but the sums of money this company is demanding are exorbitant.'

Google added that it believes IIIR's claim to the trademark to be 'tenuous' and said that it will continue to work through the courts and trademark office to secure the name.

'But this could take years to resolve, and in the meantime, we want our users to have an email address and experience they can rely on,' it said..

The result is a hollow victory for IIIR, which by asking for too much has ended up with nothing whatsoever. However it said that the £25mn was a fair price.

'Google asked us at one point what it would cost to make the problem go away,' IIIR Chairman and Chief Executive Shane Smith told Reuters. 'We had an independent valuation commission assess what the value of the trademark actually is, but we couldn't reach a settlement.'

Last month IIIR won an injunction against Google in Germany where, as a result, it now uses the googlemail brand. Google said that it has no plans to change the name in any other country.