Officially speaking, “ungoogleable” is no longer a legitimate word, according to a recent decision by the Swedish Language Council.

The council opted to remove the word from its official list after facing legal pressure from Google, who didn’t actually want it removed from usage. Google lawyers actually took issue with the definition of the word, which initially was listed as something that couldn’t be found using a search engine. Google wanted that definition to specifically refer to Google’s search engine. That makes sense because it’s an awesome marketing benefit to Google, but not if the term can refer to Bing or Yahoo.

Instead of changing the definition, the Swedish Language Council decided to just drop it from existence — something that was easier than tangling with lawyers, paying legal fees, and attending court for a few months.

“If we want to have ogooglebar [aka ungoogleable translated from Swedish] in the language, then we’ll use the word and it’s our use that gives it meaning — not a multinational company exerting pressure. Speech must be free!” council head Ann Cederberg told Swedish news site The Local.

You may be wondering why Google cares, and it likely comes down to protecting its copyright on the term “Google” in its various incarnations. If a word is considered common usage within a language, Google could lose its right to decide who and how “Google” is used, which is obviously something it’s not going to let happen. If Sweden had changed the definition, Google could still claim that it owned the usage since it specifically refers to the company. (So in other words, this isn’t just a case of Google being a huge a-hole.)

Via Engadget

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

The U.S. Patent and Trademark office has invalidated the “pinch to zoom” patent that was at the heart of a dispute between Apple and Samsung last summer.

The patent, held by Apple, concerns the use of a “pinching” gesture to zoom in and out of an image, map view, or other display on a touchscreen. While widely cited, that patent may not have been as ironclad as Apple wanted you to think. The Wall Street Journal reports that the USPTO has invalidated the patent, although its source is rather indirect: The news comes via a Samsung court filing.

Neither Samsung nor Apple have responded to our inquiries yet, and we don’t expect to hear anything enlightening from them.

Many commentators, including VentureBeat contributor Vivek Wadhwa, have pointed out the obviousness of this relatively minor patent. However, it played a key role in this year’s legal battle between Apple and Samsung. Other patents at stake in that dispute included the rubber band-like “bounce back” effect when scrolling to the end of a list and the “trade dress” of the iPhone.

Apple won an overwhelming victory in the courts, with a $1 billion judgement against Samsung, but that victory has been somewhat tempered in recent weeks.

Apple is facing some incredible challenges in the patent realm, and the company is embroiled in legal challenges with the likes of Samsung, HTC, and Lodsys. The company has reportedly hired BJ Watrous, former deputy general counsel with Hewlett Packard, to fill Lutton’s spot.

Apple did not immediately respond to our questions about the development.

The biggest ongoing case involves Samsung, which has been fighting back and forth with Apple since April. Apple recently filed an ITC complaint asking for import ban on Samsung products after Samsung asked for its own import ban on Apple devices. Then there’s major phone manufacturer HTC, which Apple reportedly targeted with a second patent complaint yesterday.

It can’t be a good sign that this change is happening. Apple is the middle of some of the biggest legal challenges it has ever faced, with serious financial and distribution consequences if it loses any of these battles.