On Saturday, Google was the one getting slapped – on the wrist perhaps.
A federal judge dealt Google a blow in a trademark lawsuit surrounding AdWords. The court ruled that allowing a typed-in trademark to trigger a search ad is a “use in commerce.”
This ruling doesn’t mean anything at this point, the case still has a ways to go. At this point, it certainly won’t stop Google from permitting advertisers to use trademarks to trigger ads.
They need to be careful though, because if those ads are later found to confuse consumers, search engines could be held liable for trademark infringement.
In this instance, Google was sued by computer repair company Rescuecom for allowing their competitors to appear as “sponsored listings” when consumers typed “rescuecom” into the query box.
A copy of the ruling can be found below:
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