In August, Google, Inc. announced that it was restructuring its company and would now be a subsidiary company of Alphabet, Inc.  It followed that up in September, with achange to its logo.

Both announcements came with mixed reviews as some loved the changes, while others hated them for no apparent reason.  Most of you probably didn’t even care, but may have still wondered what the benefit was.

There are a number of theories on why these changes were made, some a bit more obvious than others, but I won’t be talking about those today.  The obvious stuff is great and all, but it doesn’t really make you think…and since this is a newsletter about intellectual property, guess what we are going to be talking about…

……..Trademarks!

The way I see it, the Google brand was actually strengthened with the introduction of Alphabet for reasons that aren’t necessarily seen at the surface.

Now you’re probably thinking how on earth a company with so much success in a variety of industries can actual strengthen its brand by re-allocating a bunch of its businesses to a separate entity?

It’s a simple answer…Google, as we knew it, was getting way too big.

Ask someone 15 years ago what Google was, and he or she would tell you it’s what you use to search stuff on the internet.

Ask someone today what Google is, and that same person would struggle to give you a clear answer…because let’s face it, Google does everything.

You see, if Google loses the ability to be identified as a unique source of services in the minds of consumers, it would weaken its brand.  Take this a step further, and Google might be in trouble of losing its extremely valuable trademark.

In the trademark world, we call this Trademark Genericide.  The last thing any trademark owner wants is for the mark to become used so much that it becomes synonymous with whatever it is it represents, in turn becoming generic.  For example, ASPIRIN, CELLOPHANE, ESCALATOR, LAUNDROMAT, THERMOS, and ZIPPER were all once registered trademarks that became generic.

In order to prevent this genericide, trademark owners often launch advertising campaigns geared to educating the public on how to use the mark.  Xerox, famously printed a number of ads like the ones below telling people how to use the term by playing off of marks already deemed generic.  It was a clever way to tell people to stop generalizing its trademark; and it worked.

Genericide of trademarks is a problem large companies often have to plan for.  Google has a section in its policies dedicated to how to use its trademarks in context.  Twitter addressed it in its initial public offering (IPO) in October 2013:

“There is a risk that the word ‘Tweet’ could become so commonly used that it becomes synonymous with any short comment posted publicly on the internet, and if this happens, we could lose protection of this trademark.”

Google even survived a challenge last year in Elliot v. Google, when a federal court in Arizona held that the word “Google” still functions as trademark to identify Google as the source of the services.  The argument in that case was that everyone uses the word “google” as a verb when referring to searching for anything on the internet regardless of which search engine is being used.  Although this may be the case, Google successfully showed that consumers still identified the name with the brand and not a general term.

With the announcement of Alphabet, the Google brand is now more defined.  It includes core services that defined what Google was throughout the years and gives consumers a clearer image.  Following that up with a tweak to the logo was a smart move as well, as it tells people: “Hey look, we are still Google, but with a tweaked and cleaner image.”

Google is being proactive in protecting its brand…otherwise its name might actually be only worth the $12 someone bought google.com for last week!