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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 $257,430
(200,000 euros). Google is facing
similar lawsuits in different countries. In the United States, the company
recently
won a favorable ruling in a similar case brought by GEICO, the car insurance
company."
How the f$ck is this trandemark infringement?
IMHO, this is a pretty bogus ruling. The ads are distinct from the regular results and marked as such, so there's little grounds for any of the typical trademark "confusion" statues to apply. I don't think that this case would pass muster in a US court.
In short, I fail to see how Google selling Louis Vuitton adwords to LV's competitors is any different than State Farm putting up billboards across the street from Geico offices or Viagra buying an ad on the page after a Cialis article in Men's magazine. It's nothing more than good business sense. It isn't TM infringement.
Stallman likes to point out that the term "Intellectual Property" is a fallacy in the sense that copyright, patents, and trademarks are very different things that need to be discussed seperately. But one can at least identify one problem that they are all suffering from: courts and lawmakers forgetting their actual purpose, and treating them like they exist to protect incumbant companies.
In the case of Trademark, it's purpose is not to protect companies that take out trademarks, but to protect _consumers_. The point with trademark is that if I want a Coca-Cola, or a Louis-Vuitonn bag, I can be sure that what I buy is actually such a product, and not a cheap knock-off. Without trademark laws, it would be next to impossible to know what you are buying. That this leads to brands with incredible value is entirely incidental, and possibly not entirely positive.
So, in this context, the ruling could not be more stupid. How does it, in any way, hurt the consumer that competitors can advertise under queries for Louis-Vuitonn? As long as the ads are clearly marked as being adds for somebody else (as they are on Google), this will only increase competition and give the consumer more choice.
One can understand why Louis-Vuitton might not like that, but the role of the courts ought not be to do their bidding!
There is no anti-americanism in France, it's just a stupid court order. As for the nazi Yahoo auctions, it's just that Europe has a different version of what is free speech, which is comprehensible from a geographical point of view: Germany (with the Hitler guy) is in Europe.
Of course I don't pretend I can explain this court order, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the USA, GWB, the Irak war, the Nazis or an international Jewish/Freemasonry conspiracy, just some trademark issues.
The fact that they are messed up to begin with...France is irrelevant.
That's rather extreme. Just because the French state has different political views and opinions to you, doesnt mean they are any less valid. We don't know enough about the case to judge whether or not their was any bias, so jumping to these sort of conclusions is not particularly helpful.
I'm not stressed. I'm just terribly, terribly alert.
I thought France had a relatively free market?
Choice quote from Wikipedia entry "Economy of France": Government spending, at 53% of GDP in 2000, is the highest in the G-7.
Usually, that's indicative of a planned economy.
If (and I suspect that is a big if) Google is forced to comply with this extortion on the part of the French government, then Google should absolutely refuse to allow of their search engine or advertising services to anyone accessing their site from a .fr domain.
What the French government doesn't quite seem to understand is that, in the information age, France is just another brand. And, a minor legacy historical empire one at that. Notwithstanding the fact that the government of France is the king of all shit in the hexagon of land between Germany and Spain, Atlantic, and Mediteranian. And fully recognizing that France is the mother of western civilization and the primal definer of the good life, outside of France the French government doesn't amount to much.
Attention, mes amis, don't put yourselves in the position of forcing us to choose between Google and France. You won't be happy with the results. We like France; we need Google. We don't particularily need or like Louis Vitton company or their rich parasitic customers.
LV is trying to claim that Google, a company which is not beholden to them, has somehow diluted their trademark by associating other companies with it. However, if google didn't index pages linking to them, or their pages, then they wouldn't come up at all. When X is the amount of business driven to LV by google, and Y is the percentage of that business lost by people buying competing (and sometimes knockoff) products, Losing Y percent of X still leaves you with infinitely more profit from that source than you paid for.
In other words, google is a free resource and they have no right to bitch about what ads are shown along google searches for their trademark.
The counterargument is probably that because google is ubiquitous in search, they have an unfair position in the market from which to do things like this. However, they are anything but a monopoly, so that argument really doesn't wash - especially since it's not illegal to sell LV and a competing product in the same store (unless the competing product is illegal anyway) so it makes no sense to make it illegal to mention them together on the same web page. But then, most legal systems since Hammurabi are not based on what makes sense for the most people.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"This is clearly not an acceptable practice. "
why not?
As long as it's an ad.
On a poractical note, if someone is looking into Linux, then they know the MS viewpoint already.
This will be true with just about any product.
It is perfectly reasonably for me to put an ad for my product on a billboard near a competitor.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
So it is google's fault that some people are functionally illiterate? I can tell the difference between the search results and the ads. They are very, very clearly marked. What should google add? "HEY PEOPLE! THESE ARE ADS!!! BEWARE!!! BIG, GREASY, STINKING ADS!!!"
"Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead." (John Maynard Keynes)
It would be similar to a village turning their collective backs on a miscreant in their midst as if he/she never existed. They've been shunned. Imagine, any reference whether it be a personal page, or a blog, or even a particular page from a store advertising the trademarked name completely being wiped off any possible combination of searches. The beauty of it is, they could just set the filter for France, just like they probably do or eventually will set up human-rights filters for China. That company would get no free advertising within their own country on Google. Pretty powerful statement. However, in America, Google could continue business as usual with the trademark since it's legal there.
= 9J =
This is interesting. But in this case, is it reasonable to hold Google responsible for this violation of French law? Google provides an automated system where others can pay to have ads attached to particular search results. I would have expected whoever commissioned the ad to be responsible in this case and not Google.
I am not sure what the consequences of this decision will be for Google. Must they now maintain a list of every trademark registered in France (I suppose there will be millions) and apply personal judgement on whether a particular advertisement would be acceptable? This would completely destroy their business model, and without a business model, why bother to provide a search engine to the French?
When you say "we don't care", who are you speaking for exactly? The average Internet user in France, or French lawyers?
"Psst. Hey, if you give me $1,000 I'll make sure the next 100 customers trying to buy an LV bag get to your site instead, where possibly no LV bags are sold, although similar products are available for sale."
Of course, that's not Google's intent, but it *is* what happens. Company X is profiting from LV's trademark. LV spent huge amounts of money to build that mark, and it is common in Europe to disallow mention competitor's names or marks in advertising, let alone attempt to divert spending power by redirecting customers.
-- Religion is not an exact science
Google is acting in the manner most consistent with the interests of the consumer.
I suggest that Louis Vuitton deal with the fact that yes, they do have competitors who do buy ad space adjacent to their products. Trying to insist that competitors products not be placed adjacent to theirs is not in the interests of consumers. It's Louis Vuitton which is acting improperly and should be fined in this case.
Meanwhile, I'll remember that Louis Vuitton apparently has so little confidence in their products that they need to try approaches I consider to be unethical to try to stop consumers from finding out about the alternatives in the marketplace.
Please note that Slashdot displays the destination of links adjacent to them, so no reader of this post can possibly be confused about where any of the links I have used goes. And yes, this post is intended to be amusing as well as make a serious point about competition, lack of consumer confusion and ethics.
Do I think a wrong is done when someone buys an ad that hijacks a competitors trademark and redirects it to a knockoff business? Yes, of course. But the guilty party is the one who bought the ad, NOT the one whom the ad was bought from (Google). What this ruling says is that it is Google's responsibility to have hordes of people manually checking on every single keyword anyone ever buys to check it for trademark overlap. Yah, that's really fucking fair.
If I take out a classified Ad in the newspaper that makes fradulent claims, then *I* am the one responsible for the fraud, not the newspaper. This should be the same way.
But, of course, that's not the way the bullshit courts in the world work. Instead people attack the richest party that was even slightly involved, because that's where the big payout is, instead of attacking the guiltiest party.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
or that they care for their people and provide health care, transportation etc.