Google (and parking co's) have a BIG problem looming

[domaingenius]

Interflora set to win ruling over trademark use

By Nikki Tait in Brussels

Published: March 24 2011 14:49 | Last updated: March 24 2011 14:49

Advertisers cannot use keywords that correspond to trademarks if this will confuse online consumers as to the origin of the goods or services, a senior legal adviser at the European Union’s highest court said on Thursday.

The non-binding opinion was issued in a case involving Marks and Spencer, the British retailer, and Interflora, the flower delivery business. The latter had sued the retail chain in the English courts for using its trademarked name as a keyword on Google – together with various misspellings of Interflora and related expressions such as “Interflora flowers”.
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As a result, typing in “Interflora” as a search term in the Google search engine would bring up an M&S advert under the “sponsored links” heading, even though that advert bore no relationship to the flower delivery business and did not even mention it.

The case was referred to the European Court of Justice, which was asked to decide whether the use of a competitor’s trademark as a keyword to trigger an online advert constituted “use” of that trademark.

On Thursday, the senior legal adviser said that it did, and that the owner of the trademark could prohibit such conduct if consumers were likely to be confused over whether the goods or services promoted in the ad were supplied by the trademark owner.

“The proprietor of a trademark is entitled to prohibit such conduct … in the case where that ad does not enable an average internet user ... to ascertain whether the goods or services referred to in the ad originate from the proprietor of the trademark or an undertaking economically connected to it or from a third party,” said Niilo Jääskinen, advocate general.

Advocate generals’ opinions are not binding on the full court at the ECJ which will rule on the Interflora case in a few months’ time, although they are followed in the majority of cases.

[radioz]

So long as there is protection from overreaching TM holders that decide that they, say, own the name 'flowers', I think that this is a good idea. I don't see any reason that I should own or buy the terms 'Interflora' or Interflora flowers'. Again, there does need to be protection for single words and common phrases that are also used as trademarks. I should, for instance be able to buy the term 'Farmville' if I have a website related to a town or city named 'Farmville' of which there are many. I should not be able to buy the name 'Farmville' to promote another game though. That should be the limit of single word and common phrase protection.

[Banned: adonivideo]

yawn

google excludes ton of TMs as keywords

if you do sem management you know this

you can't buy certain keywords

period

so there's probably an issue if they have a legit TM claim

maybe goog doesn't honor TM's outside USPTO?

not sure

but goog already doesn't allow many keywords to be bought

[Prospecting]

keyword restrictions will drive generic domain name values upward.