Google Ruled a Trademark Infringer

Stephan writes "Google lost a trademark-infringement case in France. News.com is reporting that a Paris District Court ruled yesterday against Google in a lawsuit filed by high-end fashion designer Louis Vuitton. The company is suing Google for allowing its competitors to buy targeted ads on the search engine's search results pages that use or are associated with the Vuitton trademark. The court charged Google with trademark counterfeiting, unfair competition and misleading advertising. Google was ordered to pay $257,430 (200,000 euros). Google is facing similar lawsuits in different countries. In the United States, the company recently won a favorable ruling in a similar case brought by GEICO, the car insurance company."

Comments

Re:This is plain stupid.

[h4rm0ny]

If I have a Mazda to sell, I can mention the Mazda trademark in ads.

I think you're misleading people. It's more the case of (to use your example) Ford outbidding Mazda for the advertising space on their name. You search for Mazda and up comes Ford.

You might not care much about Ford vs. Mazda. Suppose it were Microsoft buying up all the ad-space for Red Hat, or Walmart buying up the ads for $SMALL_CHAIN.

If they want to bid on a type of item, say car, well that's one thing. But should they be able to out-bid you on your own name? One to think about more carefully.

international vs national

[way2trivial]

some things are still permitted in the US that are not elsewhere.

comparative advertising being one of them

Re:This is plain stupid.

[Ronin Developer]

Actually, they do. The same goes for off-the-shelf products you buy at places such well known computer stores. Did you ever wonder why some companies seem to get better spots for their products than others?

In the early 90's, we (a small startup company...now defunct) were going to bring a product to market for sale in a large computer store. At the time, to get our shrink-wrapped product into consumer's hands, the only place to sell it was in the large computer store chains - the internet was just starting to take off and most people didn't buy online.

The price at the time was about $250,000 year for a decent spot on the shelf - more if we wanted a highly visible end spot. Our business plan had us breaking even around year 5. You do the math. For a small, 2 man startup, that was some serious cash even before we factored in paying ourselves and making a living.

Perhaps, today, the prices have gone down due to competition from online stores. But, at the time, it was THE only way to go.

RD

why too scared?

[way2trivial]

barely legal.
http://www.chaillot.com/En/pages/p9.html
" The comparative advertising is rarely used in France because its conditions are very strict and the limit with the unfair and denigrating advertising is quickly passed over."

so, google crossed the line.

Extremely misleading translation.

[Anne Honime]

Forewords : I am a french lawyer.

The parent article is awfully misleading. Our legal systems differ on trademarks enforcement, and google fell in a trap it should have avoided by simply asking a competent local lawyer. Who's concerned ? google.FR ; why ? so-called anti-americanism ? Bullshit. We've got cases of the very same nature dating back to the 19th century between french firms. Google pobably thought they could come down there and do business as they see fit, but we're not a 3rd world country, and you can't bribe judges to twist the law. It has nothing to see with governement either.

So what's it all about ? Unfair competition. It has been ruled for over a 100 years that it is a civil wrong for a company to use the efforts made by another firm to promote its trademarks. Little example : A has a trademark 'a' ; B pays 'wall mart' for, whenever a consummer wants 'a' product, to give him a discount on 'b' product, or advertize 'b'. Why ? because B is in fact capitalizing on the money A spent to have 'a' trademark known to the public, without paying back A for this effort, thus 'stealing' it from A. 'wall mart' is wrongfully getting a profit out of it either.

The case of YP is different, because when one checks the YP, it looks for a type of good or service, and the YP comprehensively lists all the places you can find one, in alphabetical order, and no discrimination ; you can't check the YP for a trademark.

You may have a different opinion in the USoA, but know what ? We don't care.

Change your sunglasses

[RancidPickle]

Since most of the folks here are in America, they tend to respond with American ways of thinking. For the record, I'm a US citizen with 11 years of service in the US Navy and I am a disabled vet.
A good example of how France handled the case can be seen in how many cars are marketed in Europe. In the US, every vehicle is compared to the competition (ex: The Ford F250 has more towing power than a Chevy pickup, has more legroom than a Dodge pickup, and has better rims than the Toyota Tundra). This is not allowed in Europe. They can extoll the virtues of their own vehicles without dragging in other manufacturers products. To an informed consumer, both methods are silly, since they're all based on lies, damn lies and statistics.
Therefore, one is not allowed to use someone else's trademark in advertising in most European countries. This seems to be the spot where Google got in trouble. While it can be argued that Google was only the messenger, they actually made money from selling the key adwords that were trademarked. I think this is where they got hit, since they made a profit from the dealing. If they didn't charge for keywords, they probably would have avoided the fine. Perhaps if they change their adwords to kill trademarked names and separate the first and last names as different words, instead of the phrase "Louis V..." use "Louis" "Vuitton" "handbag", they could get away with it, but with this on the books I'd be extra cautious. As someone else pointed out, hire a lawyer and get legal in most of Europe - pay less than the 250K they were fined. Good insurance, IMHO.

Re:I dont see a diffenence

[LadyLucky]

Note that such commercials are not possible in many parts of the world. Here in NZ, you can't use comparative advertising like that. Of course they still try in more subtle ways, but you can't do it outright.