Google recently announced that it has registered a new holding company – Alphabet – to contain its increasingly broad range of businesses.
Website visits to alphabet.com rose by over 5000 per cent following the news, but the domain is owned by BMW, the German car manufacturer.
Earlier this week, the automobile brand said that it will be looking into whether or not Google had infringed on its trademark rights due to the fact that Alphabet is the name of an existing BMW subsidiary.
Though highlighting that the business had not taken any legal action against Google, a spokeswoman for BMW said: “We are examining whether there are any implications over trademarks.”
The car maker also emphasised that Google had not attempted to purchase the alphabet.com domain name and that it had no intention of selling.
The Alphabet business owned by BMW provides approximately 530,000 vehicles to corporate clients and has a presence in 18 countries.
To prove a trademark infringement, any trademark owner has to show that another business is causing consumers to become confused between its own brand and that of its rival, which could be the case if each of the companies sold closely related goods or services.
However, Google has said that it will not be using the new company name to create products.
Alphabet is a popular name for businesses in the US, with Patent and Trademark Office information revealing that there are 103 trademark registrations that include “alphabet” or a minor variation.
Larry Page – Google’s founder – stated that the Alphabet name had been chosen for two main reasons: firstly, because it is connected to language, which is “the core of how we index with Google search”, and secondly because Alpha-bet means “investment return above benchmark, which we strive to do”.