The American Chemical Society yesterday filed a complaint against Google, claiming the new Google Scholar infringes on its own product, called SciFinder Scholar.
You kind of have to love a place that has a “molecule of the week” on its website (that’s Nafion on the left, in case you’re wondering…), and SciFinder is certainly in the same business, to a point…but is “Scholar” protected? Maybe. But I sense something else is going on. Reading the story, the “aha” was not hard to find:
ACS’s Chemical Abstracts Service estimates that about 1,000 colleges and universities have bought the service, which provides access to all of CAS’s databases, including information on journal and patent references, substance information, regulated chemicals, chemical reactions, and chemical supplier information.
Aha! Google Scholar is free. SciFinder is paid. If Google Scholar wins out, SciFinder loses. They can’t sue Google for making information free, but they can sue for trademark. Good luck, ACS. I think you’re going to need it.
Thanks, Ross.
Update: Gary has the complaint over on Resourceshelf…