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Rosetta Stone Sues Google For Trademark Violation

Posted by timothy on from the chilling-effects-hit-businesses-too dept.

adeelarshad82 writes that earlier this week "Rosetta Stone, Inc. filed a lawsuit against Google Inc in a US federal court, alleging trademark infringement. In the lawsuit, the company alleged that Google is allowing third parties, including individuals involved in software piracy, to purchase the right to use its trademarks — or other 'confusingly similar' terms — in Google's Adwords advertising program."

8 of 213 comments (clear)

  1. Since 196BC by nOw2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In other news, Egyptians sue over confusion with ancient cultural artifact.

  2. Yes but it is a valid concern by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I work in internet advertising (one of the very numerous google adwords certified individuals and so on) and see problems from this nearly weekly.

    Your competitor (or even a scam site) begins advertising when people search for your company? Not much you can do about it. They even reference to your company in ad description? Still not much you can do about it.

    Technically you can apply for protections concerning your trademark but they only work for specific terms (ie: What you've trademarked. Any typos, product names you haven't specifically registered, slang words that people use about your product but aren't exactly the trademark, etc. can't be protected) and even then, if Google rejects the application, there is little you can do.

    You can't even contact them. Google AdWords certified companies have a specific individual as their contact person for Google but for anyone not using services by one of us... They can mail Google and get a copypaste answer that doesn't help anything at all. Or they can go to google webmasters' area and make a thread about it (though that usually helps even less)...

    So, yeah. The problem does exist.

    1. Re:Yes but it is a valid concern by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The problem isn't competitors. The problem is fraud.

      Then have you sued the people committing the fraud? Are you alleging Google is committing a trademark violation by running ads from other companies? The courts have already decided on that one for all other mediums. Go after the company placing the ad. You can even subpoena the records of who they are from Google.

      We occasionally see ads on Google that are specifically designed to look like they are from us, using our exact name.

      So what, I see people trying to run all sorts of scams over the internet. I don't sue the company hosting their page. I don't sue craigslist if someone tries to use their service to commit a crime. You sue the criminal, not the company being used just because they happen to have more money.

  3. Seems they are being very proactive by phantomfive · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In a quick google search, 80% of the ads were either put there by Rosetta Stone themselves, or an affiliate of the company. They are still buying all the ad words, they were probably just upset that their cost of advertising went up suddenly when other people wanted those same words. I don't blame them, I would be upset too. Of course that doesn't mean they should get their way......

    I have no idea whether what they are doing is legal or not, and I'll bet there has never been a court case like this ever, nor is there a law that covers it directly.

    --
    Qxe4
  4. Rosetta Stone Inc should be ashamed.... by rsmits · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So, Rosetta Stone Inc wants to sue Google for Trademark Violation. How about the British Museum, which holds the real Rosetta Stone, sues this upstart for using Rosetta Stone as it's trademark? Or the Egyptian government, which certainly has a better claim on the stone, which was looted by the Brits in the 1870's? Given all the confusion that already exists because this translation company has appropriated to itself the name Rosetta Stone, when there also exist the real Rosetta Stone, "The Rosetta Stone of immunology", "Arabidopsis, the Rosetta Stone of flowering time (fossils)", an algorithm for predicting protein structure from sequence is named Rosetta@home, and in molecular biology, a series of "Rosetta" bacterial cell lines have been developed that contain a number of TRNA genes that are rare in E. coli but common in other organisms, enabling the efficient translation of DNA from those organisms in E. coli. "Rosetta" is also an online language translation tool to help localisation of software, developed and maintained by Canonical as part of the Launchpad project, "Rosetta" is the name of a "lightweight dynamic translator" distributed for Mac OS X by Apple that enables applications compiled for a RISC processor (PowerPC) to run on Apple systems using a CISC (x86) processor. The Rosetta Project is a global collaboration of language specialists and native speakers to develop a contemporary version of the historic Rosetta Stone to last from 2000 to 12,000 AD. Its goal is a meaningful survey and near permanent archive of 1,500 languages. As well as being the name of the original Rosetta Stone, the term has come to mean something critical to decryption or translation. Rosetta Stone Inc should be ashamed of themselves...

  5. The real problem.... by Siberwulf · · Score: 5, Interesting

    For those who skimmed TFA:

    Last month, Google changed its policy stating that "advertisers will be allowed to use trademark terms in their ad text even if they do not own that trademark or have explicit approval from the trademark owner to use it," Rosetta Stone said

    The problem is NOT Google infringing upon the trademarks that Rosetta Stone holds. The issue is that Google is now willingly allowing Joe Schmuck, a competitor, to use trademarks to their own benefit. This seems like a pretty obvious infringement issue. I'm confused though, as to why Google JUST now started to allow this. If it was a no-brainer back when Adwords started, wouldn't they have allowed it at that point? Sounds to me like Adwords revenue was down, and allowing the use of non-approved trademarks in ads made the Adsword space that much more appealing in hopes of getting people off the fence when evaluating their advertising budget.

  6. Something is wrong by Lavene · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In Norway someone trademarked the name "Ida" and a drawing of the now famous fossil. They sell suitcases. The problem with this is that the museum that's is in possession of the fossil can't market it self using the name and picture of the thing...
    That's just not right...

  7. Re:Yes by Toonol · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So? A trademarks doesn't give the holder any control over a word. I can say "Linux is better than Windows", and there's nothing MS can do about it. I can even bid on "Windows" as a search term, and say "Looking for Windows? Get Linux, it's better."

    Trademark is intended solely to stop one company from representing its products as being another company's products. If a company doesn't pretend they're SELLING Rosetta Stone products, there should be no problem referencing their competitor... and that's GOOD.