http://www.iposgoode.ca/2009/07/google-adwords-facilitating-advertising-or-trademark-infringement/ Intellectual Property Law & Technology Fri, 19 Mar 2010 21:16:38 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 http://www.iposgoode.ca/2009/07/google-adwords-facilitating-advertising-or-trademark-infringement/comment-page-1/#comment-2947 George Nathanael (IPilogue Editor) Sat, 04 Jul 2009 21:30:05 +0000 http://www.iposgoode.ca/?p=4962#comment-2947 It’s interesting that this is a class action suit. If the key question really is “whether Google’s sponsored links are sufficient to cause confusion among Internet-users”, it seems intuitive that this would greatly vary and be dependent on what ads are being matched with what keywords. Even though I think Google is being unfair by allowing its AdWords program to display search hits for various products and services as well as ads of paying competitors of those products and services, if the courts find that they’re not breaking the law, other class members suffering greater losses from the more blatantly obvious confusing advertisements will be at a loss. This class action is in fact a big risk for other trademark holders, as was pointed out. It’s interesting that this is a class action suit. If the key question really is “whether Google’s sponsored links are sufficient to cause confusion among Internet-users”, it seems intuitive that this would greatly vary and be dependent on what ads are being matched with what keywords. Even though I think Google is being unfair by allowing its AdWords program to display search hits for various products and services as well as ads of paying competitors of those products and services, if the courts find that they’re not breaking the law, other class members suffering greater losses from the more blatantly obvious confusing advertisements will be at a loss. This class action is in fact a big risk for other trademark holders, as was pointed out.

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