According to a recent industry report, Google's email service currently has a global user base of 137 million. Chinese users can now log onto www.gmail.com for this service, but the Chinese domain address www.gmail.cn had been registered by a local Internet firm. Google recently began offering free Gmail accounts in China to promote its brand among local users and has tried to buy the Chinese domain name www.gmail.cn, which is run by Beijing-based ISM Technologies. 

Since ISM's Gmail predates Google's Gmail, the search company is left with the option of making an offer to buy the domain name from ISM. ISM registered the gmail.cn domain name -- which it says stands for Global Mail -- on August 1, 2003, eight months earlier than Google's April 1, 2004, announcement of its Gmail service by eight months, according to the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), which oversees the .cn top-level domain.

The name www.gmail.cn closely resembles Google's internationally known email service, www.gmail.com, and the colors in which the two logos are written are similar. The ".cn" suffix is commonly used for Chinese domain names. ISM Technologies -- which on its Web site www.ism.net.cn, claims to be the largest wholesale Internet domain registrar accredited with Chinese government-backed Internet body CNNIC -- refuses to sell the Gmail Chinese domain name. 

Google has contacted gmail.cn about the Web address and logo issue, but there is no progress so far. There is as yet no sign that Google will sue. The gmail.cn case may prove more complicated than elsewhere, given that intellectual property issues in China can become complicated by bureaucratic factors. The Chinese company is also an internet service provider which provides mail services, and Gmail can literally just be referring to a 1G mailbox (1 gigabyte-sized mailbox) or other things.

Google has stepped up efforts to acquire sole rights to the Gmail name in Web domains since opening up the free email service to its users. The company turned to lawsuits in several European countries to enforce its rights to existing Gmail domain names such as www.gmail.pl and www.gmail.de, arguing that the owners are infringing on its trademark. Those lawsuits have not generally proved successful.

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