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Appeals Court Rules Against Google On Keyword Ads
Eric Goldman writes "The Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Google in Rescuecom v. Google (PDF), a trademark infringement lawsuit over Google's keyword advertising practices. The court said: 'The Complaint's allegations that Google's recommendation and sale of Rescuecom's mark to Google's advertisers, so as to trigger the appearance of their advertisements and links in a manner likely to cause consumer confusion when a Google user launches a search of Rescuecom's trademark, properly alleges a claim under the Lanham Act.' While this result hampers Google's ability to end trademark lawsuits early, the case is still at an early stage and Google could still win."
Trademarks *are* special entities under the law. Doesn't it dilute a trademark when your competitor or unrelated or derogatory things come u from a search? Ultimately google will prevail for the same reason advertisers can use names for comparisons in their advertisements, it's a free speech issue which will trump commerce law.
It was a 12B6, so they didn't rule on anything as a matter of fact, just a matter of law, right? This ruling was just that a legal claim had been stated, but there hasn't been any discovery or fact finding, has there?
http://bgcommonsense.blogspot.com
You could look at it a different way, as well. If someone asks you, "What Mutoh printers do you have to replace this one?", but you then point them to the HP printers and say, "these."
By itself, it's not a problem. But what if HP paid you to point customers to their printers anytime someone asked about Mutoh printers? That is the essence of what Google is doing here: being paid by an advertiser to interject its products into the search results for competing products.
Google should be bitch-slapped for this, everyone at Google involved with this should have to write their "don't be evil" slogan 5,000 times, and turn it into the teacher before the end of the day.