EU Court Rules on Ad Keywords
Europe’s highest court Thursday confirmed an earlier ruling that companies using the names of their competitors as Internet advertising keywords are not infringing European trademark laws.
The case involved temporary cabin maker Portakabin, which accused its competitor Primakabin of infringing its rights as trademark owner of the Portakabin name by using it as an ad keyword.
Portakabin took issue with Primakabin’s purchase of “Portakabin” and a number of variations on that word, as ad keywords in a number of Internet search engines, including Google Inc.’s (GOOG) search engine.
Thursday’s ruling is in line with a recent judgment by the court in a case luxury-goods maker Louis Vuitton brought against Google. That ruling established that simply buying or selling such search keywords as Google’s Adwords didn’t violate the trademarks they were related to.
