BMW says it won’t give up the Alphabet domain, trademark

Google’s Larry Page introduced Alphabet yesterday, a holding company that will, as far as consumers go, not change much. You probably have noticed that Google didn’t plant its new Alphabet website on the Alphabet.com domain, however, and that if you go to the website it doesn’t have anything to do with Alphabet. That’s because it is owned by BMW, as is the Alphabet trademark, and the auto maker has revealed in a statement that it has no interest in changing that.

Speaking to the New York Times, BMW spokeswoman Micaela Sandstede revealed the auto maker does not plan to sell the domain, saying that the Alphabet.com website is a “very active” part of BMW’s own Alphabet business — a business that differs greatly from the one Google’s founders have revealed.

BMW also has Alphabet trademarked, as it is one of the auto maker’s subsidiaries. BMW didn’t get a heads up from the Google founders that they would be announcing a new company by the same name, neither has it had any requests from the duo to buy out either the trademark or the website.

According to the spokesperson, BMW is looking into whether the Google founders’ Alphabet is committing any trademark infringement upon BMW’s Alphabet, though that’s not likely to be the case as both companies are drastically different and it isn’t likely consumers will get the two mixed up.

Not familiar with Alphabet? We’ve got all the details in the timeline below!

SOURCE: New York Times

