Implications of US Supreme Court's Refusal To Hear Suit Challenging Google's Trademark

It could be that in the digital economy, protection for trademarks will be more enduring than those for tangible products. At least for now. JL

David Kravets reports in ars technica:

The Supreme Court declined to review a petition asserting "google" has become generic and unqualified for trademark protection. Even if "google" has become known for searching the Internet, Google's trademark should be valid, as Google isn't just a search engine. Trademark loss to genericide occurs when the name has become an "exclusive descriptor" that makes it difficult for competitors unless they use that name. Google will keep its trademark unlike teleprompter, thermos, hoover, aspirin, and videotape.
The Supreme Court declined to review a petition asserting that the term "google" has become too generic and therefore unqualified for trademark protection.
Without comment, the justices set aside a legal challenge claiming that Google had fallen victim to "genericide" and should no longer be trademarked. A lawsuit claimed the word "google" had become synonymous with the term "search the Internet" and therefore could no longer sustain a trademark. For the moment, Google will keep its trademark—unlike the manufacturers of the teleprompter, thermos, hoover, aspirin, and videotape. They were once trademarked but lost that status after they were deemed too generic.
In a petition that the high court refused to hear, the justices were told that "There is no single word other than google that conveys the action of searching the Internet using any search engine."
The lawsuit was brought by a man named Chris Gillespie who had registered 763 domain names that included the word "google." In response, Google claimed trademark infringement, and Gillespie was ultimately ordered to forfeit the domains. Gillespie then sued in a bid to invalidate the trademark.A federal appeals court ruled last year that, even if the word "google" has become known for searching the Internet, Google's trademark should still be valid, as Google isn't just a search engine. "Even if we assume that the public uses the verb 'google' in a generic and indiscriminate sense, this tells us nothing about how the public primarily understands the word itself, irrespective of its grammatical function, with regard to Internet search engines," the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled (PDF).
The appeals panel said trademark loss to genericide occurs when the name has become an "exclusive descriptor" that makes it difficult for competitors to compete unless they use that name.
Having a trademark provides a host of legal protections. According to the American Bar Association, a trademark "grants the right to use the registered trademark symbol: ®," allows a rights holder to sue for trademark infringement, and "acts as a bar to the registration of another confusingly similar mark."