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Google Ruled a Trademark Infringer
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Sat Feb 05, 2005 11:34 AM
from the at-least-in-france dept.
from the at-least-in-france dept.
Stephan writes "Google lost a trademark-infringement case in France.
News.com is reporting that a Paris District Court ruled
yesterday against Google in a
lawsuit filed by high-end fashion designer Louis Vuitton. The company
is suing Google for allowing its competitors to buy targeted ads on the
search engine's search results pages that use or are associated with the Vuitton
trademark. The court charged Google with trademark counterfeiting, unfair
competition and misleading advertising. Google was ordered to pay $257,430
(200,000 euros). Google is facing
similar lawsuits in different countries. In the United States, the company
recently
won a favorable ruling in a similar case brought by GEICO, the car insurance
company."
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This is plain stupid. (Score:3, Insightful)
How the f$ck is this trandemark infringement?
Re:This is plain stupid. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not complicated.
Parent
Re:This is plain stupid. (Score:5, Insightful)
People doing searches for Louis V-whatever-the-frig-handbags are going to see ads for others - boo hoo.
Parent
Re:This is plain stupid. (Score:5, Informative)
If I have a Mazda to sell, I can mention the Mazda trademark in ads.
I think you're misleading people. It's more the case of (to use your example) Ford outbidding Mazda for the advertising space on their name. You search for Mazda and up comes Ford.
You might not care much about Ford vs. Mazda. Suppose it were Microsoft buying up all the ad-space for Red Hat, or Walmart buying up the ads for $SMALL_CHAIN.
If they want to bid on a type of item, say car, well that's one thing. But should they be able to out-bid you on your own name? One to think about more carefully.
Parent
Re:This is plain stupid. (Score:3, Insightful)
Have you used Google lately? It isn't the yellow-pages, it is a search engine, and searching for Louis-Vuitton [google.com] turns up guess who as the first hit.
The advertisements pruchased by competitors where clearly marked as such and on the sides.
Re:This is plain stupid. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not like there's a finite amount of ad space - advertising space grows as the budget for it grows.
Let's reverse your scenario - according to your way of thinking, Microsoft shouldn't be allowed to advertise in Linux Magazine.
It's advertising, and that's the nature of the beast. Or would you also restrict people from mentioning openoffice when people ask about Microsoft Office? Or Firefox when people search for Internet Exploder?
Re:This is plain stupid. (Score:3, Insightful)
I've already answered this below (both typing at the same time, I guess), but as this is directed at me, I'll just make two points.
There is a finite amount of ad space, you're wrong in this. The space is limited by the readers attention span. Probably the first few entries count, maybe the whole page if she's really doing comparison shopping. At most though, seven or eight little google ads are going to be looked at. The issue is whether someone else can use your own name for advertising against you.
Re:This is plain stupid. (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyway, I still don't see the issue with respect to Google. You can't buy "all the advertising space" related to your rival with Google, all you can do is have it so your advertising comes up if you search for that rival.
From the point of view of an end user, this is far from evil or misleading. This isn't about people trying to pass themselves off as a company, it's simply marketing to people interested in a particular product. If I search for "Biro", the chances are I want a pen. If I'm searching for something specific to Biro (like "How do I contact them about repairing this pen"), then the relevent links will appear on the left, as always. If I'm looking to buy a biro, then I'll be interested in the unobtrusive links on the right from companies that feel I may be interested in their product. Maybe I would prefer a Parker. Maybe I want to buy the Biro from WHSmiths.
I think the fairest comparison is actually Parker Pens going to a newspaper and saying "When you next do a story concerning Biros, can you put our ad next to it?"
That shouldn't be considered trademark infringment, and it's certainly not evil business practices. Trademarks were intended as a way to guarantee against fraud, as one group passing its products off as the other's. It strikes me that the laws here are being taken to go far beyond that remit, to the point that it threatens speech instead. If they carry on this way, just as the DMCA is undermining the legitimacy of copyright, and software patents the legitimacy of the patent system, they risk undermining trademarks too. Legislatures need to intervene and stop this abuse.
Parent
Re:This is plain stupid. (Score:4, Interesting)
No, this is more like opening a used car lot that sells Mazdas, and buying a spot under the Used Cars - Honda category, possibly without mentioning that you actually only sell Mazdas.
Parent
Re:This is plain stupid. (Score:4, Insightful)
Second - as another poster pointed out, it's perfectly legal in France to mention competitors in ads, but it hasn't been done until recently.
Third: the article is bullshit. Look at this quote:
How is restricting letting consumers find competitors a "protection to consumers"? It's a boot heel on their neck, by brand owners over-extending their "rights" to help stifle competition, that same competition which is what really benefits consumers.Fourth: Misleading advertising? The ads were clearly labeled as ads. And, unlike most media, where you have to "contact their media department", google's policies are a click away.
Parent
Re:This is plain stupid. (Score:5, Informative)
In the early 90's, we (a small startup company...now defunct) were going to bring a product to market for sale in a large computer store. At the time, to get our shrink-wrapped product into consumer's hands, the only place to sell it was in the large computer store chains - the internet was just starting to take off and most people didn't buy online.
The price at the time was about $250,000 year for a decent spot on the shelf - more if we wanted a highly visible end spot. Our business plan had us breaking even around year 5. You do the math. For a small, 2 man startup, that was some serious cash even before we factored in paying ourselves and making a living.
Perhaps, today, the prices have gone down due to competition from online stores. But, at the time, it was THE only way to go.
RD
Parent
Re:This is plain stupid. (Score:5, Interesting)
WalMart is notorious for this, but they only took an existing practice and expanded on it ...
Same with beer companies paying extra to have their brand placed more conveniently, or with more linear feet of exposure.
Tobacco companies pay your local store hundreds of dollars every month so that their package is right behind the cashier, and their competitors' is less visible.
Nobody has a right to be protected from competitors ads if they are not lies.
Parent
Re:This is plain stupid. (Score:3)
Re:This is plain stupid. (Score:5, Interesting)
Google could easily make it a policy that if you sue them, they blacklist you. They have NO obligation (other than to their shareholders) to index your site. It's their servers and their software, so they can do whatever they want with it. Actully, you could even make a strong argument that they have a fiduciary obligation to their shareholders to avoid lawsuits, so blacklisting the trademarks of hostile companies is just good business practice.
If it were me, I'd say something like: You're not happy that your trademarked words can result in your competitors' pages coming back in the search results or adsense? No problem, well make it so that someone entering your trademark as a search term brings up a message that says "The following words are protected trademarks and were not included in your search: $TRADEMARK". Hope you're happy now, asshat.
Parent
Re:This is plain stupid. (Score:3, Informative)
Besides, imagine the rioting in the streets if we took your post and replaced all instances of "Google" with "Microsoft."
Re:louis vuiton fashion, louis vuiton clothes, bag (Score:4, Informative)
Not at all, that seems to be a common misconception!
Apple (Jobs) owns the trademark in computers, but Apple (beatles) own the trademark in records. Even then there may be several owners of the trademark since different markets can have different owners.
The trademark protection is only for the market they are in and only for the product the mark covers.
I agree with the rest of your post though, Google still have to deliver the best result possible regardless of who they are pissed at.
Parent
It sort of makes sense... (Score:3, Informative)
you must not be from the US (Score:3, Interesting)
what I wonder is however, if someone shows a pre-recorded television program from the USA that includes comparative advertising that would be ill
Re:It sort of makes sense... (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, actually is it trademark infringement depending on how you look at it. I wouldn't say this case is clear cut. I'm sure you've seen many commercials on television that make direct comparisons. Recently, I've seen a commercial that compares Liquid Plumber and Drano. I can't remember who ran the commercial but the advertisers mention both products by name. And advertisements of this nature have gone on for decades.
Sometimes you might be
Re:It sort of makes sense... (Score:3, Interesting)
Freedom of competition has little to do with this.
It's the idea of searching for a tradem
Don't worry Google... (Score:5, Funny)
I dont see a diffenence (Score:5, Interesting)
international vs national (Score:5, Informative)
comparative advertising being one of them
Parent
Re:international vs national (Score:3, Informative)
Comparative advertising IS allowed in France (but most companies are too scared to use it). That's why I don't think it's relevant here.
why too scared? (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.chaillot.com/En/pages/p9.html
so, google crossed the line.
Parent
Re:I dont see a diffenence (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Unfair Ruling (Score:4, Interesting)
Trademark counterfeiting? I really don't see this as being the case. Google is simply a tool by which various links are collected and set out in a presentable manner. Instead of shooting the messenger (Google), it seems to me that a more fair ruling would be to go after the counterfeitters themselves.
Unfair competition? I thought France had a relatively free market? And what exactly *is* "unfair competition" anyway? This aspect of the ruling seems as though it's set out to protect French business interests more than anything else.
Misleading advertising? Once again, it's the advertisers doing the misleading, not Google.
Re:Unfair Ruling (Score:4, Insightful)
Choice quote from Wikipedia entry "Economy of France": Government spending, at 53% of GDP in 2000, is the highest in the G-7.
Usually, that's indicative of a planned economy.
Parent
Versus Billboards (Score:5, Insightful)
In short, I fail to see how Google selling Louis Vuitton adwords to LV's competitors is any different than State Farm putting up billboards across the street from Geico offices or Viagra buying an ad on the page after a Cialis article in Men's magazine. It's nothing more than good business sense. It isn't TM infringement.
Re:Versus Billboards (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, according to the article, it didn't pass muster in the US.
In short, I fail to see how Google selling Louis Vuitton adwords to LV's competitors is any different than State Farm putting up billboards across the street from Geico offices or Viagra buying an ad on the page after a Cialis article in Men's magazine. It's nothing more than good business sense. It isn't TM infringement.
Here, I have to disagree. Putting up billboards across the street is not the same thing. This is more like putting a phone tap on the line, and setting it up so that each time someone calls Geico, they get an intercept telling them how wonderful State Farm is.
The real question in my mind is whether, if this ruling holds up pretty broadly, the Google adwords (tm) model will suffer. How many ads are for competitors, versus how many just for a generic term like "car insurance"?
In the end, if I were Geico or Louis Vuitton, I think I'd be pretty upset too.
Parent
Re:Versus Billboards (Score:4, Insightful)
Importantly, nothing gets intercepted, because the main search results still go through to Geico. What's added is a small annotation saying that if you're interested in Geico, you might want to check out State Farm instead.
If rulings like this stand, I think the next rung of lawsuits against search engines happens when Geico isn't the first search hit for "Geico" or if "State Farm" shows up second on the search results page. [tongue-in-cheek]Brand Confusion, I tell you![/tongue-in-cheek] At least in the current case, "State Farm" is marked as an advertisement and displayed *distinctly* from the main results.
What else would rulings like this ban? Miller ads that say - "half the carbs of Bud light" Or "Aleve lasts twice as long as Tylenol"? Comparitive advertisement is a cornerstone of the US marketplace. I understand that it is much less so (if not altogether verboten) in Europe.
In any case, whatever you want to call this, it ain't TM infringement.
Parent
Re:Versus Billboards (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Versus Billboards (Score:3, Insightful)
It's probably more like an advert on a train timed to show off State Farm ads when the train is pulling up to the Geico stops. The ads can be ignored.
I think the bigger factor here is that Google was bringing to France foreign competition to French
Stupid! (Score:5, Insightful)
In the case of Trademark, it's purpose is not to protect companies that take out trademarks, but to protect _consumers_. The point with trademark is that if I want a Coca-Cola, or a Louis-Vuitonn bag, I can be sure that what I buy is actually such a product, and not a cheap knock-off. Without trademark laws, it would be next to impossible to know what you are buying. That this leads to brands with incredible value is entirely incidental, and possibly not entirely positive.
So, in this context, the ruling could not be more stupid. How does it, in any way, hurt the consumer that competitors can advertise under queries for Louis-Vuitonn? As long as the ads are clearly marked as being adds for somebody else (as they are on Google), this will only increase competition and give the consumer more choice.
One can understand why Louis-Vuitton might not like that, but the role of the courts ought not be to do their bidding!
Now I don't entirely understand this.. (Score:4, Interesting)
It is not the fault of the technology, but users that are just plain confused. This ruling will look incredibly dumb in a generation or two when people are generally more saavy.
not search engines (Score:3, Informative)
it's the for profit advertising that violates french law.
In france, where they have an office.
just remove them (Score:4, Interesting)
lets see who's laughing (Score:5, Interesting)
The real reason this is stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
LV is trying to claim that Google, a company which is not beholden to them, has somehow diluted their trademark by associating other companies with it. However, if google didn't index pages linking to them, or their pages, then they wouldn't come up at all. When X is the amount of business driven to LV by google, and Y is the percentage of that business lost by people buying competing (and sometimes knockoff) products, Losing Y percent of X still leaves you with infinitely more profit from that source than you paid for.
In other words, google is a free resource and they have no right to bitch about what ads are shown along google searches for their trademark.
The counterargument is probably that because google is ubiquitous in search, they have an unfair position in the market from which to do things like this. However, they are anything but a monopoly, so that argument really doesn't wash - especially since it's not illegal to sell LV and a competing product in the same store (unless the competing product is illegal anyway) so it makes no sense to make it illegal to mention them together on the same web page. But then, most legal systems since Hammurabi are not based on what makes sense for the most people.
You can be sued for anything and nothing (Score:3, Interesting)
This is about Google selling advertisement (search results?) showing a competitor when a user searched for a particular brand.
I don't know how any of that fits into any given legal ssytem but I do think that it's inappropriate in the sense that the user is probably not interested in seeing it. If I am searching for something about Volvo... parts or recall history or whatever, I sure as hell don't want my information contaminated with unrelated information from Ford or Chevrolet. So in that sense, I disagree with the practice.
Should Google be able to sell advertisement? YES. Should they be able to sell targeted advertisement? YES. Should they be able to sell targetted advertisement triggered by a competitor's trademark? No... they shouldn't do it... unless specific cases necessitate it. I'm from the South (Texas, USA -- that's kinda south) and out here, we ask for a "coke" when we want a soda and a "kleenex" when we want a tissue. The trademark became the item. I don't know if that's the case with this particular trademark issue, but I think Google should be responsible enough not to do what they are accused of having done. If I am Pepsi, I shouldn't be able to buy targetted advertising against "coke" or "coca-cola" as a keyword.
Now that said -- is the purchaser of said advertisement being held accountable for this? Google is a company with global availability and they cannot help when local laws are affected or when local companies feel offended. I think it would be more appropriate that authorities rule that Google remove such material but that the purchaser be held responsible -- not Google.
I'm recalling other areas where France has tried to rule against global companies such as eBay for allowing the sale of items that the French government has banned. So to France I say, "Dude! You're not the only people on the planet and certainly not the most important or significant. Get over yourself." (To that, I would expect an echo about the U.S.
Extremely misleading translation. (Score:5, Informative)
The parent article is awfully misleading. Our legal systems differ on trademarks enforcement, and google fell in a trap it should have avoided by simply asking a competent local lawyer. Who's concerned ? google.FR ; why ? so-called anti-americanism ? Bullshit. We've got cases of the very same nature dating back to the 19th century between french firms. Google pobably thought they could come down there and do business as they see fit, but we're not a 3rd world country, and you can't bribe judges to twist the law. It has nothing to see with governement either.
So what's it all about ? Unfair competition. It has been ruled for over a 100 years that it is a civil wrong for a company to use the efforts made by another firm to promote its trademarks. Little example : A has a trademark 'a' ; B pays 'wall mart' for, whenever a consummer wants 'a' product, to give him a discount on 'b' product, or advertize 'b'. Why ? because B is in fact capitalizing on the money A spent to have 'a' trademark known to the public, without paying back A for this effort, thus 'stealing' it from A. 'wall mart' is wrongfully getting a profit out of it either.
The case of YP is different, because when one checks the YP, it looks for a type of good or service, and the YP comprehensively lists all the places you can find one, in alphabetical order, and no discrimination ; you can't check the YP for a trademark.
You may have a different opinion in the USoA, but know what ? We don't care.
Change your sunglasses (Score:5, Informative)
A good example of how France handled the case can be seen in how many cars are marketed in Europe. In the US, every vehicle is compared to the competition (ex: The Ford F250 has more towing power than a Chevy pickup, has more legroom than a Dodge pickup, and has better rims than the Toyota Tundra). This is not allowed in Europe. They can extoll the virtues of their own vehicles without dragging in other manufacturers products. To an informed consumer, both methods are silly, since they're all based on lies, damn lies and statistics.
Therefore, one is not allowed to use someone else's trademark in advertising in most European countries. This seems to be the spot where Google got in trouble. While it can be argued that Google was only the messenger, they actually made money from selling the key adwords that were trademarked. I think this is where they got hit, since they made a profit from the dealing. If they didn't charge for keywords, they probably would have avoided the fine. Perhaps if they change their adwords to kill trademarked names and separate the first and last names as different words, instead of the phrase "Louis V..." use "Louis" "Vuitton" "handbag", they could get away with it, but with this on the books I'd be extra cautious. As someone else pointed out, hire a lawyer and get legal in most of Europe - pay less than the 250K they were fined. Good insurance, IMHO.
You mean, (Score:3, Funny)
Did you sleep through the news of the girls in Colorado who were fined for giving cookies to their neighbor? Idiotic judgements are passed by every court in the world. Your jingoism is misplaced.
Re:Screw France (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course I don't pretend I can explain this court order, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the USA, GWB, the Irak war, the Nazis or an international Jewish/Freemasonry conspiracy, just some trademark issues.
Parent
Re:Screw France (Score:4, Insightful)
That's rather extreme. Just because the French state has different political views and opinions to you, doesnt mean they are any less valid. We don't know enough about the case to judge whether or not their was any bias, so jumping to these sort of conclusions is not particularly helpful.
Parent
Re:Rumsfeld and Hussein (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Sillyness (Score:3, Interesting)
Absolutely not. I think it's utterly ridiculous to think these suits are utterly ridiculous, so there's a start.
I mean has anyone seen any pepsi/coke ads lately ? They feature their competitors unabashedly.
They do not feature their competitors unabashedly. They insult their competitors to coerce people into buying their product. There's no truth, just BUY US, NOT THEM, THEY SUCK.
It's wrong.
"No one should hear about the competitor's
Shunning. (Score:3, Insightful)
It would be similar to a village turning their collective backs on a miscreant in their midst as if he/she never existed. They've been shunned. Imagine, any reference whether it be a personal page, or a blog, or
Re:Microsoft buys "Linux": An interesting parallel (Score:3, Insightful)
why not?
As long as it's an ad.
On a poractical note, if someone is looking into Linux, then they know the MS viewpoint already.
This will be true with just about any product.
It is perfectly reasonably for me to put an ad for my product on a billboard near a competitor.
Re:Microsoft buys "Linux": An interesting parallel (Score:3, Informative)