The European Court of Justice has ruled in favour of Google in a decision that could have wide-reaching implications for online advertising. Judges have confirmed that using other companies’ names as online advertising keywords is not an infringement of European trademark law. This news will be a major boost to Google’s revenue-generating Adwords service. The […]
The European Court of Justice has ruled in favour of Google in a decision that could have wide-reaching implications for online advertising. Judges have confirmed that using other companies’ names as online advertising keywords is not an infringement of European trademark law. This news will be a major boost to Google’s revenue-generating Adwords service.
The decision follows a long-running battle between Google and trademark owners. The case involved temporary cabin maker Portakabin and its competitor Primakabin. Primakabin chose the keywords ‘portakabin’, ‘portacabin’, ‘portokabin’ and ‘portocabin’ as its search terms for Google Adwords.
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The last three variations were chosen so that internet users searching for the company would not miss Primakabin’s ad due to a minor spelling mistake.
The judgment by the Luxembourg-based court, Europe’s highest legal authority, accepted that when a user searches Google on the basis of one or more words, the search engine will display the sites which appear to best correspond to those words.
It further allowed that customers of Google’s paid-for Adwords service may choose whichever words they want, within reason, without infringing trademark law.
The EU ruling upholds a precedent set by a case brought against Google by Louise Vuitton, which went after Google claiming that searches for its brand name brought up ads for businesses offering counterfeit merchandise.
In that case, Internet content services were found to be not infringing on trademarks so long as they were “neutral” about the content. The new ruling affirms that decision, funding that search engines may display ads that best correspond to keywords, and users of advertising services may use whatever keywords they like, within reason, without infringing on European trademark law.
