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US Court Orders Company to Use Negative Keywords
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.'"
Orion's overrated anyway. They should change their name to BoÃtes.
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This is unfortunate. The courts should have no jurisdiction over someone's stupidity. Using the name "Orion" in your company name is just asking for trouble. It's such a popular and recognizable term. OB and ORF shouldn't be surprised when someone steps on their toes once in awhile. OB acts like it invented the term despite the fact that it's been around for thousands of years.
And then with the courts stepping in and forcing ORF to not use the term in their advertising is playing favorites to OB. I can only imagine that this decision puts a serious dent in ORF's bottom line. If ORF was calling themselves "Kleenex" or some other brand name, that would be understandable, but "Orion?" Come on. OB shouldn't be crying foul when they should've known there would be confusion with the name "Orion." They need to grow up and play ball the old fashion way: may the best man win.
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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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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".
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.
"Negative Keywords" is a Google term. Excluded Keywords the Yahoo term. The judge specifically said "negative keywords or negative adwords". So does this reach across to OTHER search engines? I would hope so and that Google has a case on their hands if they had "Negative keywords" trademarked...
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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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You can hire Maddox to be your spokesperson.
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I think this sets a bad precedent. The internet is a global mechanism, and I think this has the potential to start a land grab for "confusing" names. Just as an example, how many "Golden Dragon" Chinese restaraunts are there in the entire US? Or Golden Pheasants? Or Red Dragons? Or all three in the same city? Who sues to get a lock on "Golden" and who ensures that no one else anywhere can use "Dragon"?
And don't even get me started on AA Locksmiths, AAA Locksmiths, and AAAA Locksmiths...
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I mean, "apple" and "America" are pretty generic terms, but I suspect if I started a company called "Apple Microcomputers" and "Mortgage Bank of America" I'd get some phone calls real soon, and they wouldn't be from customers.
Ah well, they should just change their name to "YA Bankrupt Fly-By-Night Mortgage Broker" and be done with it.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
Except that Orion Pictures doesn't sell financial services. ORF does, which is why the complaint carried weight. The two companies have overlapping areas of business interest. It's not just the use of a trademarked term, it's use of it in such a way that it could cause confusion for potential customers and cost the plaintiff money.
Sorry, I'm a writer. That makes you raw material.
You might want to do some reading on trademark law before you post next time.
Sorry, I'm a writer. That makes you raw material.
You're thinking of copyright concepts. This is a trademark issue. Trademark has nothing to do with being creative or original -- it only has to do with distinctive identification of goods and/or services.
In short, there's no reason Orion couldn't be a protected mark. The court found that it is, and I see no particular reason to think they'd get this wrong. That being the case, telling them they can't advertise under that mark is pretty much normal operation of trademarks.
Requiring negative adwords seems a bit punitive ("since you've chosen to profit off confusion, you now must take extra care to eliminate confusion")... not sure if that's common, but what do you expect when you don't bother to show up?
IANAL
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similar to how Linus owns the trademark Linux when applied to software, and somebody else owns the trademark Linux when applied to laundry detergent.
Different domain, different trademark.
Heh... that summary says there are over 200 different trademarks for the term Linux.
The reason this injunction is so bad is that it explicitly forbids comparative advertising. You know how in the grocery store they shelve the Campbell's soup next to the store's off-brand label? That's similar to buying the trademarks of your competitors as keywords. That way, both products come up in the search results and the consumer gets to investigate both and determine which she would like to buy. That benefits the market by giving consumers more information, exactly the kind of thing that trademark law should promote.
I realize that the First Amendment doesn't protect commercial speech to the extent that it protects other kinds of speech, but this seems exactly like the kind of commercial speech the First Amendment should protect. You can't sell an off-brand product if you are not allowed to say, "We're cheaper than the brand name!"