Google Shares Top $400Google Shares Top $400

Google Inc. shares opened Thursday at more than $400, representing almost a fivefold increase since the search engine's initial public offering 15 months ago.

The Mountain View, Calif., company's stock started trading on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange at $401.68. By late afternoon, shares were up 1.32 percent to $403.40.

In other news, Google on Thursday said it has changed the name of Google Print to Google Book Search to avoid confusing consumers. Google Print is the company's service for finding and buying books.

"Why the change? Well, one factor was all the comments we got about how excited people were that Google Print would help them print out their documents, or Web pages they visit, which of course it won't," Jen Grant, product marketing manager for Google, said in the company's blog.

Google's plans to copy library books, including copyrighted works, and make them searchable has sparked two lawsuits from publishers and authors, who are accusing the company of scanning books into its database without permission. Google claims its actions are legal.

Grant did not mention Google's legal troubles directly in announcing the name change, but did say, "No, we don't think that this new name will change what some folks think about this program."