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prohibits speech on netbook


Psion Netbook

trademark claims Google has decided to block the use of the term "netbook" on its famous advertising program Adsense. From today, you can not use that word for advertisers wishing to advertise their products on the large network of "context advertising" company in Mountain View.

The reason is that the netbook is a trademark of Psion. The London-based company had in fact put on the market back in 1999 a product called Netbooks and had registered the trademark.

The date of registration required by Psion Netbook brand in U.S. is 18 December 1996 and was awarded by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on November 21, 2000 with the number of U.S. trademark 75,215,401. Last year, when there was a phenomenal success selling netbooks, Psion began to warn the producers that he was in possession of the trademark for the word "netbook". The warning letters were sent on 23 December 2008 and asked both manufacturers to the major sites of fans of the series to desist from the use of their trademark. In practice Psion Netbook forbade the use of the word in any context information that did not refer to their product was old and buried (no longer produced since 2003). Google has today and then took note of trademark and that has informed its advertisers that the term "netbook" can no longer be used in the Adsense ads.

fact is that netbook is a term used by consumers, the media, and also from the same Intel to describe a category of products in general. And this leads us to consider that a mark, though legally registered, it becomes difficult to defend if the term becomes generic and frequently used in everyday language.

Many observers believe that this is an attempt to raise the price on the sale of a brand that is now no longer need to Psion, but whose legal threats are still not convinced Google to take risks. The Mountain View giant has therefore decided to delete that word from its advertising network, to avoid any legal disputes. This is a rare case of filter on common words and are looking for legitimate advertising and Google and we are confident that all netbook manufacturers will need to resolve this soon, which has become a case.