Google Sued Over Chromebook Name

A Salt Lake City-based company has filed suit against Google, arguing that it has the rights to the Chromium name, and by default, Chromebook and Chromebox.

ISYS Technologies wants a Utah district court to stop Google—as well as partners Acer, Amazon.com, Best Buy, and Samsung—from marketing Chromebooks and from selling them later this month.

ISYS is the parent company of Xi3 Corporation, which last year introducedthe pint-sized Xi3 Modular Computer. Last month, Xi3 announced a new small form factor desktop PC designed to run Google's Chrome OS, dubbed the ChromiumPC.

Efforts to brand the Xi3 device the ChromiumPC appear to be at the root of this week's lawsuit. ISYS, which acts as an intellectual property management and holding company, filed to trademark the ChromiumPC brand in June 2010. Google, however, opposed the filing, citing its Chromium OS, according to the lawsuit.

ISYS also contends that Google originally sought to call its Web-based netbooks the "Speedbook," but switched to Chromebook after discovering the Speedbook mark was already taken. Google then filed "unnecessary extensions of time" on the ChromiumPC trademark application before introducing its Chromebooks at a May 11 press event. Xi3's ChromiumPC was unveiled on May 23.

In its suit, ISYS said that Google has no rights to the Chromium name, and that its Chromebook and Chromebox names are "confusingly similar" to the ChromiumPC, causing "damage and irreparable harm to ISYS."

chromium pc chromebook chromebox google samsung acer 

Read More: