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Sep. 24, 2007 at 10:25am Eastern by Barry Schwartz
Google Asks Judge To Deny Boarding To American Airlines Lawsuit
Google seeks dismissal of American Airlines suit from Dallas Business Journal reports that Google has filed a motion to dismiss the American Airlines vs. Google trademark case. In that case, American Airlines sued Google for allowing advertisers to bid on their trademark names.
Gary Price located the motion to dismiss document (PDF format). Google argues that triggering ads using terms that are also trademarks is not itself a protected trademark use and that if there are trademark issues, American Airlines should be going after the advertisers that are actually purchasing the ads.
In the motion, Google said:
The fact that the advertising occurs on the Internet, rather than in a drugstore or on a sidewalk, makes no difference.
The motion to dismiss was filed by Google last Wednesday in the U.S. District Court in Fort Worth.
Also see Paid Search Ads & Trademarks: A Review Of Court Cases, Legal Disputes & Policies, which reviews the many cases involving trademarks and search ads that have been filed over the years.
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By Barry Schwartz
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See Related Stories In: Google: Legal, Legal: Trademarks
I'll be watching that case very closely. It's either going to have big implications for Google (if they lose) or big implications for SEMs if this argument prevails (that it's up to brand owners to take legal action against infringers directly).