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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.'"

3 of 177 comments (clear)

  1. Its perfectly reasonable by Zeinfeld · · Score: 5, Informative
    There was a pretty clear claim for trademark infringement here. The court very reasonably found that ORF was trading on Orion's reputation.

    Having made that finding the court is quite reasonably penalizing ORF. It is quite reasonable for an injunction to penalize ORF after they clearly took advantage of Orion's reputation.

    And any company that does not show up in court when served with papers is likely to find that they end up saddled with onerous terms in any case.

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  2. Re:Editors please Edit! by techpawn · · Score: 5, Informative

    Translation:
    The judge in the case went further, though, restraining
    IF
    restraining ORF from 'purchasing or using any form of advertising including keywords ||
    ('adwords' in internet advertising containing any mark incorporating Plaintiff's Mark &&
    hall, when purchasing internet advertising using keywords, adwords or the like, require the activation of the term 'Orion' as negative keywords) ||
    negative adwords in any internet advertising purchased or used.
    END

    I may need to debug that...

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  3. Re:Appeal in 3..2..1.. by jeiler · · Score: 5, Informative

    Under normal circumstances I'd agree completely, but since ORF didn't show up at court, their odds of winning an appeal are slim to none.

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