A startup called Huddle legally ponders the Google+ Huddle feature

As part of the new Google+ service came Huddle, a group texting app available to Android users. This makes mobile group collaboration easier, says Google. So far so good. Except…

There’s already a five-year-old group collaboration startup called Huddle, which has to date raised $14.2m in venture capital and has office in San Francisco and London.

We’re reaching out to Google for comment on this, but Huddle itself has declined to comment at this point. However, sources close to the company told me that they are looking into the use of the word “Huddle” by Google with their attorneys. TechCrunch understands that Huddle may have trademarks associated with use of the word where it is used to describe a business application around collaboration.

There’s an irony that Google picked this word for its group messaging app – which will probably also concern startup GroupMe – in that ‘Huddle the company’ has been providing collaboration and group messaging services to businesses and SMEs for some time.

Clearly it’s a popular word. Huddle also only recently secured Huddle.com after being Huddle.net for several years.