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

Why the French might not like Google

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

Google for "French military victories" (with or without quotes).

The first hit is a web page on French military defeats. :)

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/victories.htm l

Re:Extremely misleading translation.

[TRACK-YOUR-POSITION]

The bullshit part is that google.fr is sued rather than whoever bought the ad on google.fr. I mean, you Frenchies can pass a law that everyone must walk on their heads when selling a product, and no one's got any right to change it (except maybe the WTO) but everyone's got the right to call you pack of crazy yet ultimately harmless loons. You may have a different opinion in the USoA, but know what ? We don't care. And pretty soon, no one will care. France's economy, international clout, and demographics are in decline. I predict that by 2092 A.D. Arabic and English will be more common in France than French, and by 2137 A.D. the accent/dialect of English spoken in France will no longer even be considered particularly sexy or romantic. You'd better be ready to learn Sharia law to get a jump on the impending changes. All google wanted to do was let you use a search engine and make a bit of cash. Your senseless law has created an obstacle. Google loses a bit of cash, though in the worst possible case they'll just make google.com point to a French-language page hosted in another country if the user has a French ip (it probably does that already), so they probably won't lose that much. A minor annoyance, by far eclipsed by their problems here in America with their "Froogle" trademark. (What the...why am I suddenly walking on my head?)