Google Settles Lawsuit With American Chemical Society

Google has settled a lawsuit filed against it by the American Chemical Society over a claim that the Google Scholar search engine violated the society’s trademark for its academic search engine, Scifinder Scholar. The settlement was reached without fanfare this month, with both parties agreeing not to discuss the details, according to CNET News.com. In the lawsuit, filed in December 2004 in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the society argued that it holds a "common law" trademark for the term "scholar" because people often refer to the Scifinder Scholar tool, which was started in 1998, as simply "Scholar."—Jeffrey R. Young