Intellectual Property Watch

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Google Claims Ads Found Not Infringing Trademarks

by Intellectual Property Watch 2 Comments

The European Court of Justice has ruled that Google did not infringe trademark law “by allowing advertisers to bid for keywords corresponding to their competitors’ trademarks,” according to the Google blog.

The internet search engine said it is satisfied with the ruling which, “confirmed that European law that protects internet hosting services applies to Google’s AdWords advertising system.” It said the ruling is important because “it is a fundamental principle behind the free flow of information over the internet.”

The case was about whether advertisers can choose keywords freely in their outreach efforts on the internet. In particular, it was about whether or not, when a brand name company is entered as a search query, other companies can show advertisements on the page, Google said.

The company said it had been waiting for a series of decisions by the Court deciding if trademark rights could be used “restrict information.” The first of those decisions came today.

The decision can be read here.

Also on the Google blog yesterday was the announcement that it will no longer run its censored google.cn search engine. Instead, visitors to google.cn will be redirected to google.com.hk, the uncensored Hong Kong site. The New York Times reported today that China has reacted to Google’s change, blocking links to certain results from google.com.hk and blocking some search terms entirely.

Creative Commons License"Google Claims Ads Found Not Infringing Trademarks" by Intellectual Property Watch is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Comments

  1. Very unfortunate to publish a Google reaction without a description of the full judgement.

    The Court’s press release has two titles, the second of which saying: “Advertisers themselves, however, cannot, by using such keywords (my addition: trade marks), arrange for Google to display ads which do not allow internet users easily to establish from which undertaking the goods or services covered by the ad in question originate”.

    In plain text, this means that Google may well have to revise its business model.

    The Court has moreover discussed in detail the liability of Google as the referencing service provider. On this, the press release says:

    “With regard to the question whether an internet referencing service, such as ‘AdWords’, is an information society service consisting in the storage of information supplied by advertisers and whether, on that ground, the liability of the referencing service provider may be limited, the Court rules that it is for the referring court to examine whether the role played by that service provider is neutral, in the sense that its conduct is merely technical, automatic and passive, pointing to a lack of knowledge of, or control over, the data which it stores.

    If it proves to be the case that it has not played an active role, that service provider cannot be held liable for the data which it has stored at the request of an advertiser, unless, having obtained knowledge of the unlawful nature of those data or of that advertiser’s activities, it failed to act expeditiously to remove or to disable access to the data concerned.”

    In sum, there is room for contending that three letters may well be missing from the first sentence in Google’s announcement that “Google aims to provide as much information as possible to users so that they can make informed decisions” — from the word “information”.

    Reply

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