Firefly Digital Inc, a web development company, sued Google last year in Louisiana federal court for its use of the term "Gadgets" to refer to its line of "Google Gadgets" product.  "Google Gadgets" are applications that allow you to add features such as news feeds, stock quotes, maps, and interactive games to your existing iGoogle account and Google desktop (I use these daily by the way). 

It turns out that Firefly was already using the "Website Gadget" and "Gadget" trademarks for its website content managing system. The company promptly sued Google, claiming trademark infringement and unfair competition; Google responded by filing a motion for summary judgment, arguing that the use of "gadget" was generic here. The federal judge agreed with Google, finding that "gadget" was generic given similar uses by third parties, dictionary definitions, use in news media, and consumer survey results.

According to trademark law, if the mark is (or becomes) the generic name of the goods or services, then the mark is generic and must remain (or become) free for all to use.  This is good public policy and prevents one company from monopolizing the ability to use an industry generic term by itself (if "apple" was a trademark for apples the fruit, other fruit sellers would not be able to otherwise accurately identify their goods). 

In this case where numerous companies use the term "gadget" to refer to mini-applications (in fact, Microsoft uses the gadget to refer to its mini-applications), it does not seem as though consumers associated the term "gadget" with a single source and it simply wouldn't make sense to allow one company to monopolize the term gadget. 

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