CASE ASSIGNMENT: Google In May 2012, Arizonian entrepreneur David Elliott sued Google Inc. to have the Internet advertising and search giant stripped of its eponymous trademark. Elliott claimed that the word Google had become a generic term meaning simply "to search on the Web," and like thermos, aspirin, and zipper, it should no longer belong to any one company. As evidence of this, Elliott's lawyer, Richard M. Wirtz, cited the American Dialect Society's decision to declare the verb google the word of the decade for 2000 to 2009. Elliott's legal action against Google came only after the tech company filed-and won-a trademark infringement lawsuit against Elliott himself. In the suit, Google claimed that 750 Internet sites registered to Elliott used the term Google illegally. All 750 Web sites, featuring domain names such as googledonaldtrump.com and googlegaycruises.com were forfeited to Google. According to paidContent blogger Jeff John Roberts, Elliott's