Domain Spotlight:

Everything is Trademarked: Even Google Has to Lease “Droid”

R2-D2 DroidIt’s almost impossible to have any domain name and not infringe on someone’s trademark.  Take Google’s new Android phone operating system.  They’re running a new ad campaign about “The Droid is coming”.  Guess who owns the trademark on Droid?  None other than Lucas Film.  I noticed it in the footer of this sleek new site promoting the phone.

Verizon and Google could have risked it and just claimed non competing areas but Lucas has a history of defending its trademarks and Google and Verizon have cash.  Zendroid, a small Finnish company had to change their name to Zenrobotics after losing their case with Lucas.

The unusual part about the trademark search for Droid was the fact that Lucas just updated the trademark on October 9th this year (I’d put up the actual link but the url times out).  If you go to TESS and search, it appears Lucasfilm trademarked DROID  specifically for mobile devices.On a side note the Council for Lucas has the domain name mofo.com which I absolutely love and will hire just for the url.

Domain Spotlight: