Free for a Fee

By Eric Goldman

After the ECJ’s favorable opinion in the Google cases, I’ve been wondering if Google would liberalize its trademark policy in Europe. It took Google 4 months to parse the ECJ’s inscrutable opinion and make a call, but it finally decided that the opinion was favorable enough to support liberalization.

After the changed European policy (starting Sept. 14), Google will have a virtually uniform world-wide policy not to block bids on trademarked keywords at the trademark owner’s request. Google will block trademark references in ad copy at the trademark owner’s request, but this will be subject to regional differences. In the US and (starting Sept. 14) UK, Ireland and Canada, Google will not block TM references in ad copy for resellers, complementary product sellers and information sites. In the EU and some related countries (EFTA), Google’s new policy will be to review ads on an ad-by-ad basis as follows:

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Advertisers in Europe will soon be able to buy other companies’ trademarked terms using Google AdWords. Google announced Wednesday that it was changing its AdWords policy in Europe to align more closely with its policies elsewhere, meaning that a trademark owner won’t be able to lay claim over all ads that use the same words.

The content in this post was found at http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/08/google-to-sell-trademarked-adwords-in-europe-like-us.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

[Post by Venkat]

Advertise.com, Inc. v. AOL Advertising, Inc., Case No. 10-55069 (9th Cir; Aug 3, 2010).

The Ninth Circuit handed AOL a preliminary trademark loss, finding that ADVERTISING.COM is likely generic for internet advertising services.

Background: AOL owned trademark registrations for ADVERTISING.COM, and brought trademark claims against Advertise.com. The district court found AOL’s mark to be descriptive (and thus protectable) and granted AOL’s request for an injunction, barring Advertise.com’s use of a confusingly similar design (to AOL’s ADVERTISING.COM) and also enjoining Advertise.com from using the designation and trade name ADVERTISE.COM. Advertise.com appealed the latter portion of the district court’s order.

Discussion: The crux of the appeal - as framed by the Ninth Circuit - was whether AOL’s mark was descriptive, as the district court concluded, or generic. The parties agreed that AOL offered “online advertising” or “internet advertising” services.

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The content in this post was found at http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2010/08/9th_cir_smacks.htm and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

By Eric Goldman

Rosetta Stone Ltd. v. Google Inc., 1:09-cv-00736-GBL-TCB (E.D. Va.). Opinion granting Google’s motion to dismiss filed August 3, 2010. Order granting Google’s motion to dismiss the unjust enrichment claim filed August 2, 2010.

Back in late April, many of us were eagerly awaiting the impending trial in Rosetta Stone v. Google, which was going to be the first trial in a trademark owner v. search engine keyword advertising case since the GEICO v. Google case in 2004. Then, just days before the scheduled trial, the judge granted Google’s motions to end the case, which negated the scheduled trial. However, because the case had been moving too fast in the Rocket Docket, the judge made that ruling without providing any written explanation of why. For about 3 months, we’ve been wondering how good a win Google got.

The opinions are finally out, and we’ve learned that Google got a complete win, in that the judge endorsed Google’s basic business structure.

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The content in this post was found at http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2010/08/google_gets_com.htm and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

By Eric Goldman

Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc. v. Tabari, 2010 WL 2680891 (9th Cir. July 8, 2010)

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I bring this up because the Ninth Circuit’s latest domain name opinion involves litigation that makes no financial sense for either side. The Tabaris are independent auto brokers that help their customers find and buy Lexus vehicles from an authorized Lexus dealer. They run a business called Fast Imports from the domains buy-a-lexus.com and buyorleaselexus.com.

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The content in this post was found at http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2010/07/funky_ninth_cir.htmand was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.