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US Court Orders Company to Use Negative Keywords

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the negative-ghostrider-the-pattern-is-full dept.

A US court has ordered a firm to utilize negative adwords in their internet advertising. "Orion Bancorp took Orion Residential Finance (ORF) to court in Florida over ORF's use of the word 'Orion' in relation to financial services and products, arguing that it had used the term since 2002 and had held a trade mark for it since then. [...] The judge in the case went further, though, restraining ORF from 'purchasing or using any form of advertising including keywords or "adwords" in internet advertising containing any mark incorporating Plaintiff's Mark, or any confusingly similar mark, and shall, when purchasing internet advertising using keywords, adwords or the like, require the activation of the term "Orion" as negative keywords or negative adwords in any internet advertising purchased or used.'"

26 of 177 comments (clear)

  1. Editors please Edit! by alta · · Score: 3, Funny

    The judge in the case went further, though, restraining ORF from 'purchasing or using any form of advertising including keywords or 'adwords' in internet advertising containing any mark incorporating Plaintiff's Mark, or any confusingly similar mark, and shall, when purchasing internet advertising using keywords, adwords or the like, require the activation of the term 'Orion' as negative keywords or negative adwords in any internet advertising purchased or used. Do you realize how long this sentence is? Fine for court documents, but not for a casual news site.
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    1. Re:Editors please Edit! by travdaddy · · Score: 5, Funny

      Do you realize how long this sentence is? Fine for court documents, but not for a casual news site.

      It's fine, we're all very adept lawyers here.

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    2. Re:Editors please Edit! by gbjbaanb · · Score: 4, Funny

      ok. translation for the modern generation:

      "you know dude, you been naughty. like stop it, k"

      will that do ya?

    3. Re:Editors please Edit! by gnick · · Score: 5, Funny

      Do you realize how long this sentence is? Fine for court documents, but not for a casual news site. Sometimes, due either to an attempt to communicate a complicated idea or the desire to expand on a simple idea ad nauseum for novelty purposes, a sentence will carry on for extended lines and, if properly authored by an individual using simple words and eschewing obfuscation, it will not necessarily be difficult for the general public to understand, even without the assistance of a lawyer, translator, or advanced Communications degree.
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    4. Re:Editors please Edit! by Hatta · · Score: 5, Funny

      They're lucky that's the only long sentence given by the judge.

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    5. Re:Editors please Edit! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Sometimes, thoughts are complex.

      The again, sometimes sentences (such as the one quoted), are just poorly written.

    6. Re:Editors please Edit! by Daffy+Duck · · Score: 3, Funny

      Also, not enough people think they're not smart or don't think that they aren't smart or are not smarter than they don't think.. wait, what was the question again?

    7. Re:Editors please Edit! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Also, sometimes people dro letters, from the ends of words, and use, too many, commas.

    8. Re:Editors please Edit! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      It scares me that I understood that.

      I need a woman, NOW.

    9. Re:Editors please Edit! by SingerGuy59 · · Score: 5, Funny

      The magnitude of your copious assertion is far to sagacious for my diminutive comprehension.

    10. Re:Editors please Edit! by zippthorne · · Score: 4, Funny

      Legal rulings are like genie wishes (or is that the other way around...).

      As soon as you hit the period, you get your wish. Usually corrupted in a horribly unforeseen way.

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    11. Re:Editors please Edit! by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 3, Funny

      What?

      Many words OK.

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    12. Re:Editors please Edit! by popmaker · · Score: 4, Funny

      I need a woman, NOW. Well, if you REALLY want something incomprehensible, fine, go ahead.
  2. Misinterpreting negative by Bovius · · Score: 5, Funny

    When I first read the post, for some reason I thought "negative keywords" meant they had to advertise under keywords that people wouldn't want, like "really bad financial service" or "shady loan company" or "housing lemons".

  3. Re:Orion Bankcorp: Crybabies by JustOK · · Score: 5, Funny

    Plus, everyone knows the Orion is a satire/parody website.

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  4. My interpretations: by Alzheimers · · Score: 4, Funny

    1) Company must now register and pay for the keywords "Dummy", "Poopiehead", "Fartsniffer", and "Boogerbrains"

    or

    2) Company must now register keywords that, when combined with their intended keywords, nullify each other out, like Semantic anti-matter.

    or

    3) Company may only use keywords that have a value less than zero.

    1. Re:My interpretations: by Yvan256 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Company may only use keywords that have a value less than zero
      Well, someone finally solved it:

      1. Get sued for trademark infringement
      2. Get court to force you to buy negative keywords (which value is less than zero)
      3. Profits!

    2. Re:My interpretations: by WK2 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Just because you buy something with value less than zero, doesn't mean that you get paid money for accepting it. Windows Vista, for example.

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  5. Re:Orion Bankcorp: Crybabies by sm62704 · · Score: 2, Funny

    The bank one should change their name to "Orien's Moneybelt".

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  6. But who is actually the Master of Orion? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    I think that the case should probably have been settled by whichever of the two originally defeated The Guardian. That's the only way I've ever known of to determine Orion ownership...

  7. Re:Orion, that's definitely a unique name.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    What do you expect with Perl crap from the early 90s, you think they've heard of unicode and character encoding?

  8. Aye Matey, forget Orion, call yourself Booties by Orion+Blastar · · Score: 3, Funny

    as in Pirate Booty or Booties plural.

    Pirate Booties Bankcorp

    You can hire Maddox to be your spokesperson.

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  9. Re:The Wrong Cachet by JasonKChapman · · Score: 2, Funny

    I guess "Onion Residential Finance" would bring a tear. Only in appeal.
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  10. Re:Bad precedent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    your AAAA record for locksmiths.com in DNS is violating my trademark for "AAAA DNS Services". Only my company can do AAAA records in DNS.

  11. what? by theshowmecanuck · · Score: 2, Funny

    IANAL

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  12. Re:Orion Bankcorp: Crybabies by DECS · · Score: 2, Funny

    It's in the title of a Prince song, so presumably it's a poetic reference to a vagina.