Keyword Advertising not Trademark Violation Says Court
January 9th, 2007 by pamela
The old debate over trademarked PPC terms continues, with a US court ruling that ““The court holds that, as a matter of law, the use of keyword-triggered ads and keyword metatags cannot confuse consumers if the resulting ads/search results don’t display the plaintiff’s trademarks”.
Eric Goldman has written an analysis of the ruling on his marketing and technology blog. While trademark law is supposed to avoid consumer confusion, this debate seems that it may rumble on for some time. Although this ruling found that simply buying a text ad based on a competitor’s keyword is not a violation, buying an ad containing a trademarked term may be different a matter.
At this point at least it seems that the law holds the same views as Google.
Posted in Paid Search |
