Apparently, the technology company called Psion owns the trademark for the now ubiquitous term "Netbook" that is used to describe the most popular segment in the computer market right now. Reports say that last year Psion informed people that is owned the trademark to the term and warned against using it generically.

Since the hoards of tiny, cheap notebook on the market today are all called netbooks, it seems Psion's warnings went unheeded. The company won a battle last week with Google banning the term "netbook" from being used in ads on its Adsense network.

Psion says that the banning of the term marks the conclusion of an investigation by Google that ended in the search giant finding that netbook is indeed a trademarked term and can’t be used on its ad network. The rub is that many computer makers and even Intel use the term netbook generically. Could we be calling the little machines something else soon?

Via JKonTheRun