Wireless

Google denied NexusOne trademark

By Michael Carroll Mar 16, 2010 9:10pm

Google must prove it isn’t involved in the oil industry if it wants to trademark the NexusOne name for mobile use.

The firm’s application to trademark the brand has been rejected by the US Patent and Trademark office, after it emerged Integra Telecom has already registered the ‘Nexus’ moniker for a wide range of telecoms applications.

However, Integra’s ownership relates to usage in the oil industry, which could provide Google means to appeal the rejection on the basis it won’t infringe the existing trademark by competing in the oil markets, The Register reports.

The rejection is the latest blow in the NexusOne’s short, but troubled, life.

Early sales of the handset have been sluggish in comparison to Apple’s market leading iPhone, according to figures from applications firm Flurry.

It states Google sold 135,000 NexusOnes in the 74 days since it launched, well short of the one million iPhones Apple sold over the same period when the first iPhone went on sale in 2007.

Now, Flurry says Motorola’s Android-powered Droid has outsold Google’s own-brand handset, with 1.05 million sales in its first 74 days.

Google is unlikely to enjoy a boost in sales from European markets until mid-to-late April at the earliest, after carrier Vodafone was forced to delay the device’s debut for a second time in as many weeks, The Guardian reported on Sunday.

The carrier originally wanted to put the handset on sale in the UK this month, but was stalled by Google until early April.

If Google does manage to win the NexusOne trademark, it could still lose out in a lawsuit filed by the estate of deceased sci-fi author Philip K. Dick just days after the device launched in January.

The suit alleges trademark infringement because androids in Dick’s novel Do Robots Dream of Electric Sheep were named Nexus 6, Sky News reported.

Dick’s novel formed the basis of hit movie Blade Runner.