{"id":1189,"date":"2010-03-23T12:23:28","date_gmt":"2010-03-23T16:23:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/legalbytes.ignite.lexblog.com\/2010\/03\/french-connection-googles-adwords-clipped-by-louis-vuitton\/"},"modified":"2022-04-28T20:32:16","modified_gmt":"2022-04-28T20:32:16","slug":"french-connection-googles-adwords-clipped-by-louis-vuitton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/legalbytes.com\/2010\/03\/23\/french-connection-googles-adwords-clipped-by-louis-vuitton\/","title":{"rendered":"French Connection: Google’s AdWords Clipped by Louis Vuitton"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over five years ago, in early 2004, luxury fashion designer Louis Vuitton sued Google<\/a> in connection with the sale of search-related advertising. \u00a0You will recall the company behind the Louis Vuitton brands and many others (LVMH Mo\u00ebt Hennessy \u2022 Louis Vuitton S.A., usually shortened to LVMH<\/a>) has been very aggressive in policing and protecting its marks on eBay<\/a> and other Internet sites.\u00a0 The Paris District Court held that Google was engaged in trademark infringement, unfair competition and misleading advertising.\u00a0\u00a0The Paris Court of Appeals subsequently ordered Google (and its French subsidiary) to pay \u20ac300,000 in damages. When those rulings were announced, a spokesperson for Louis Vuitton, praising the Court\u2019s decision, said, “It was absolutely unthinkable that a company like Google be authorized, in the scope of its advertising business, to sell the Louis Vuitton trademark to third parties, specifically to Web sites selling counterfeits.”\u00a0 The remarks went on to state, “This milestone ruling grants protection for the first time to both consumers and brand owners\u201d adding that Louis Vuitton believed the Court\u2019s finding meant that Google’s services were \u201cmisleading advertising services.”<\/p>\n

Google appealed, and today the European Court of Justice (ECJ)<\/a> released its ruling on appeal of that decision.\u00a0 For you purists in the audience, procedurally within the ECJ, the decision is one in respect of the Joined Cases C-236\/08 to C-238\/08, in the proceedings captioned Google France SARL, Google Inc. v. Louis Vuitton Malletier SA (C-236\/08), Google France SARL v. Viaticum SA, Luteciel SARL (C-237\/08), and Google France SARL v. Centre national de recherche en relations humaines (CNRRH) SARL, Pierre-Alexis Thonet, Bruno Raboin, Tiger SARL (C-238\/08). <\/em><\/p>\n

The case essentially asks whether Internet search providers can be liable for trademark infringement when selling \u2018keywords\u2019 that are based upon the trademarks of another. \u00a0The ECJ ruling doesn\u2019t completely immunize or exonerate Google, nor does it leave advertisers defenseless either, but it does in effect give the green light to Google and other search providers to continue to offer keywords to bidders; there had been concern in Europe that a negative judgment from the ECJ would have brought all such services to a halt.\u00a0 The decision takes a now familiar, \u201clet\u2019s examine if you do more than just sell the trademark as a keyword at the request of the advertiser\u201d approach.<\/p>\n

So, if all an Internet search company such as Google is doing is selling keywords, the decision appears to allow Google to do so, despite a showing of confusion by consumers.\u00a0 But \u2013 as those of you advertisers and marketing professionals who are tuned in to AdWords<\/a>\u2019 algorithmically driven \u2018suggestions\u2019 will know \u2013 Google\u2019s program actually suggests keywords derived from previous selections. So Google\u2019s AdWords code might suggest \u201cBritish Airways\u201d as related to \u201cVirgin Atlantic\u201d or \u201cRyanair\u201d or, as in this case, “imitation\u201d or \u201cfake\u201d coupled with \u201chandbags\u201d as a keyword related to “Louis Vuitton.\u201d Not merely passively selling an existing word or mark and more actively engaging in the \u2018suggestion\u2019 process, in the Court\u2019s view, consequently attaches liability.<\/p>\n

By analogy, one can rationalize such a decision with similar rulings in the United States under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)<\/a> or more directly under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA)<\/a>.\u00a0 In the case of the DMCA, if one has no notice of infringement and innocently publishes infringing content, until knowledge is shown \u2013 by \u2018take down\u2019 notice or otherwise \u2013 a passive distributor would generally not be held liable for intellectual property infringement.\u00a0 Similarly, the CDA distinguishes between those who participate in the content creation process and those who merely distribute (the traditional news media distinction between editor\/publishers and newsstand\/distributors).<\/p>\n

Under the instant ruling by the ECJ, although simply purchasing a keyword would not seem to constitute a per se<\/em> legal violation in the EU, some rather arcane wording by the ECJ seems to suggest that advertisers (not necessarily the search provider) could now be held liable for trademark infringement resulting from their keyword purchase if their advertising can be shown to be confusing to consumers.\u00a0 Thus, courts in the EU will now be examining both the appearance of the advertising and its demonstrable or likely effect on consumers.\u00a0 One of our Associates, Drew Boortz, who follows these developments, notes that we are not aware of any U.S. case that has delved this deeply into keyword sales.\u00a0 While there are trademark and advertising cases that deal with \u201cuse in commerce,\u201d the eight or nine recent cases against Google directly involving keywords are yet to come up for trial (e.g., Rosetta Stone Ltd. v. Google, Inc.<\/a><\/em>, U.S. federal complaint filed on July 10, 2009 in the Eastern District of Virginia; scheduled for trial in May).<\/p>\n

Chris Hackford in our London office notes that trademark owners will no doubt be a little disgruntled after this ECJ judgment, as they will have to continue to bid on their own registered trademarks in order to ensure that they remain at the top of the listings.<\/p>\n

If you want to form your own view of the ECJ decision, you can read it right here: Louis Vuitton v. Google<\/a><\/em>; or you can call Rimon for help.\u00a0 Our offices in Paris<\/a>, as well as London<\/a>, Munich<\/a> and Piraeus<\/a> in the EU, stand ready to assist; and, of course, you can contact me, Joe Rosenbaum<\/a>, in New York<\/a>; Chris Hackford in London<\/a>; Drew Boortz in our Washington, D.C.<\/a> office; or the Rimon attorney with whom you regularly work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over five years ago, in early 2004, luxury fashion designer Louis Vuitton sued Google in connection with the sale of search-related advertising. You will recall the company behind the Louis Vuitton brands and many others (LVMH Mo\u00ebt Hennessy \u2022 Louis Vuitton S.A., usually shortened to LVMH) has been very aggressive in policing and protecting its marks on eBay and other Internet sites. The Paris District Court held that Google was engaged in trademark infringement, unfair competition and misleading advertising. The Paris Court of Appeals subsequently ordered Google (and its French subsidiary) to pay \u20ac300,000 in damages. When those rulings were announced, a spokesperson for Louis Vuitton, praising the Court’s decision said, “It was absolutely unthinkable that a company like Google be authorized, in the scope of its advertising business, to sell the Louis Vuitton trademark to third parties, specifically to Web sites selling counterfeits.” The remarks went on to state “This milestone ruling grants protection for the first time to both consumers and brand owners” adding that Louis Vuitton believed the Court’s finding meant that Google’s services were “misleading advertising services.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":168,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,14,31,38,1],"tags":[63,182,285,290,324,359,474],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFrench Connection: Google's AdWords Clipped by Louis Vuitton - Legal Bytes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/legalbytes.com\/2010\/03\/23\/french-connection-googles-adwords-clipped-by-louis-vuitton\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"French Connection: Google's AdWords Clipped by Louis Vuitton - Legal Bytes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Over five years ago, in early 2004, luxury fashion designer Louis Vuitton sued Google in connection with the sale of search-related advertising. You will recall the company behind the Louis Vuitton brands and many others (LVMH Mo\u00ebt Hennessy \u2022 Louis Vuitton S.A., usually shortened to LVMH) has been very aggressive in policing and protecting its marks on eBay and other Internet sites. The Paris District Court held that Google was engaged in trademark infringement, unfair competition and misleading advertising. The Paris Court of Appeals subsequently ordered Google (and its French subsidiary) to pay \u20ac300,000 in damages. When those rulings were announced, a spokesperson for Louis Vuitton, praising the Court's decision said, "It was absolutely unthinkable that a company like Google be authorized, in the scope of its advertising business, to sell the Louis Vuitton trademark to third parties, specifically to Web sites selling counterfeits." 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