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Comment by droithomme | Hacker News Reader

Thanks. I read further along in the linked post and found this comment by Rob Pike, one of Go's chief developers:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/golang-nuts/6dKNSN0M_kg/dMCQ...

> The name Go is not trademarked by Google, at least as a programming language trademark. There are other things Google makes called Go (an interesting signal on its own) and they might be trademarked, but Go the language is not a trademark.

> -rob

But, here is Google's official trademark list:

https://www.google.com/permissions/trademark/trademark-list/

> Golang™ programming language

> Go™ programming language

Golang and Go are trademarked by Google as programming languages and Rob Pike is not aware of this. That is interesting. Rob should be made aware.

And so the debate is now settled: Go is in fact Google's programming language, as an empirical legal fact.

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I'm not certain, but I think that page is wrong. I searched the USPTO database of trademarks for "Golang" and nothing was picked up: http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=toc&state=4809%3Ax...

I'm not confident I'm correct only because it seems unlikely Google would have a page listing trademarks it doesn't actually own. That being said, I'm pretty sure there's no other place to search for trademarks.

I also don't think there is actually a trademark on the term "Go" based on this USPTO search: http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=toc&state=4809%3Ax.... But admittedly I've only looked through five or six pages; using the option to search for an exact term doesn't seem to cut down the search results at all.

> it seems unlikely Google would have a page listing trademarks it doesn't actually own

Putting a ™ symbol after a name is only a claim on that name to be one's own property for use as a mark on some product or service when trading, and big corporates do this all the time. So I think it's likely Google would have such a page.

> I also don't think there is actually a trademark on the term "Go" based on this USPTO search

There's a distinction between a trademark and a registered trademark. Registering the name in some jurisdiction's database just means the corp has begun its defense of that claim before it sees a perceived infringement.

I would imagine everyday words like "Go" (or "Groovy") wouldn't be accepted by the US trademark office anyway, so perhaps Google tried but failed to register it there. They might get "Golang" accepted but the Go team have said the name of the language is "Go" not "Golang".

https://trademarks.justia.com/881/00/go-88100955.html

Word Mark GO

Goods and Services IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038.

G & S: Computer programs and downloadable computer programs that implement a computer programming language for use in developing, building and managing other software.

FIRST USE: 20091110.

FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20091110

Standard Characters Claimed

Mark Drawing Code (4) STANDARD CHARACTER MARK

Serial Number 88100955

Filing Date August 31, 2018

Current Basis 1A

Original Filing Basis 1A

Owner (APPLICANT) Google LLC LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY DELAWARE 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View CALIFORNIA 94043

Type of Mark TRADEMARK

Live/Dead Indicator LIVE

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