This appears to be a significant step forward for Psion in their quest to recover and protect their ‘netbook’ brand and a massive consideration for those running their business in this sector. According to Psion, Google have researched and accept that the ‘netbook’ name belongs to Psion and are going to ban the use of it in adverts. The news comes from JKontherun.
…Today Psion let us know that Google has investigated the trademark claim and determined that “netbook” is indeed a protected trademark. Google does these investigations as they are impacted when they run ads on their network. The determination by Google that the term “netbook” is duly registered and protected has prompted them to inform their ad customers that the term can no longer be used in Google ads.
Im sure the OEMs will be pressuring Intel to get this resolved as soon as possible. Bloggers too. What about the tens, possibly hundreds of websites that have put huge effort into the netbook keyword? What about the ones that use ‘netbook’ in their site name? We contacted Sascha Pallenberg of netbooknews.de for his instant reaction….
“I am shocked. 50% of my ad income comes through Google and i definately have a problem now. I am gonna try to get some reactions of the taiwanese “Netbook” manufacturers after the weekend”
February 7th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
RT @chippy: ‘Netbook’ banned from Google ad network http://tinyurl.com/az3yrp Me: who will write the big check to Psion?
February 7th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
I would guess that Intel (as you say above) would come in and write a big huge check for it. Then because they own the trademark, issue guidelines on how it should be used. Maybe not. Maybe they do the right thing and push it into open source. Or maybe a consortium of OEMS and manufacturers buck up and make the investment….
Worst case, need to use a different term. Some have used the term “mini-notebooks”, maybe “minis”, maybe “internetbook”, maybe “ibook”.
February 7th, 2009 at 6:10 pm
call them “minibooks” .. a short, fitting term, except those machines above 10.x inch form factor
February 7th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
interesting. i am in russia and while i’m reading this article, there’s the google ad next to the article with russian ads INCLUDING “netbook”, just in russian..is this ban already happening or not?
February 7th, 2009 at 8:50 pm
hmm, it feels more like a marketing scheme… Your dealing with there target niche market. Just make better uses of web applications specific to the netbook lifestyle. It one of constant knol points & a unified understanding of the web’s abilities.
singularity is the goal.
February 8th, 2009 at 9:11 pm
How about calling them “CarryPads”!
February 9th, 2009 at 2:39 am
You can name them whatever you want; as long as there’s a company buying up all possible namings, you won’t be able to give it any name for it!
I think what psion did is just plain stupid!
Am I not allowed to speak the word ‘netbook’ again, unless related to a Psion device?
They should take pride of having the only ‘netbook’,and have all the other ‘netbooks’ named after it!
It seems like this ‘land of the free’ with all it’s court cases is actually going a bit too far; becoming the land of the ‘bound’ instead.
I’m no longer able to do anything or someone will bring me to court.
February 9th, 2009 at 7:50 am
how about just call it the AtomBook…
September 4th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Whatever happened to "netbook" being banned from Google ad services? http://tinyurl.com/netbookban