EU Court Says Google Can Sell Trademarked Keywords In AdWords

Sep 22, 2009 at 9:56am ET by Barry Schwartz

Google Can Sell Trademarked Keywords, EU Adviser Says from Bloomberg News reports the EU’s highest court has ruled Google can sell trademarked keywords in search ads. As we reported back in June 2008, Louis Vuitton sued Google over trademark issues with search ads and Google then appealed to this court. Google has won that appeal and has set the law on this matter across the whole European Union.

Advocate General Luis Miguel Poiares Pessoa Maduro said in a non-binding opinion to the European Court of Justice today in Luxembourg:

It is important not to allow the legitimate purpose of preventing certain trademark infringements to lead all trademark uses to be prohibited. Since the use by Google does not involve identical or similar goods or services, in principle there can be no risk of confusion on the part of the consumers.

In the US, Google recently allowed trademarks to be used in the AdWords copy.

Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.

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ONE COMMENT ON EU Court Says Google Can Sell Trademarked Keywords In AdWords

zumbaba, September 22nd, 2009 at 10:43 am ET:

Hi Barry, Google hasn’t “won” yet; it is only a non-binding given opinion by one of the court’s advocate-generals. The court very often follows the advocate-general legal opinion but the judgment itself will be made by a panel of judges; it is expected later this year or early 2010.

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