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GOOGLE can sell companies’ brand names

By Amarendra Bhushan for CEOWORLD Magazine Updated:September 22, 2009

Google can sell companies’ brand names as keyword search terms, a top EU judge said today.

It means firms are able to buy up their competitors names, and when customers search for the trademark the rivals website will appear in a list of related articles.

Sponsored links, which appear in a segregated section to the right of standard Google results, are an important revenue driver for Google. Brand owners oppose them because they argue the system allows others to piggyback on their trademarks.

In the interim legal judgement, the European Court of Justice said Google had not broken trademark rights by allowing advertisers to buy “trademarked” keywords.

The Advocate-General, Poiares Maduro, said: “Google has not committed a trademark infringement by allowing advertisers to select keywords corresponding to trademarks”.

Significantly the top judge said that simply typing in a brand name as a keyword was not a breach of trademark law because Mr Maduro said “no product or service was being sold to the general public”.

Luxury goods maker LVMH claimed that’s a trademark infringement and tried to block the practice, arguing that the search results also led to companies selling counterfeit goods and rival products. But EU Advocate General Poiares Maduro ruled largely in Google’s favor today, saying in his opinion that “the mere display of relevant sites in response to keywords is not enough to establish a risk of confusion on the part of consumers as to the origin of goods or services.”

Google isn’t entirely home free. The company could still be liable for the wrongful use of trademarks, Maduro said.The case had been referred by a French court to the judicial panel and the judges will issue a verdict at a later date, according to a court statement. But the tribunal almost always follows the recommendations of its advocate general.

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