US Court Orders Company to Use Negative Keywords 177
A US court has ordered a firm to utilize negative adwords in their internet advertising. "Orion Bancorp took Orion Residential Finance (ORF) to court in Florida over ORF's use of the word 'Orion' in relation to financial services and products, arguing that it had used the term since 2002 and had held a trade mark for it since then. [...] The judge in the case went further, though, restraining ORF from 'purchasing or using any form of advertising including keywords or "adwords" in internet advertising containing any mark incorporating Plaintiff's Mark, or any confusingly similar mark, and shall, when purchasing internet advertising using keywords, adwords or the like, require the activation of the term "Orion" as negative keywords or negative adwords in any internet advertising purchased or used.'"
Re:Orion, that's definitely a unique name.... (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootes
Its perfectly reasonable (Score:5, Informative)
Having made that finding the court is quite reasonably penalizing ORF. It is quite reasonable for an injunction to penalize ORF after they clearly took advantage of Orion's reputation.
And any company that does not show up in court when served with papers is likely to find that they end up saddled with onerous terms in any case.
Re:Editors please Edit! (Score:5, Informative)
The judge in the case went further, though, restraining
IF
restraining ORF from 'purchasing or using any form of advertising including keywords ||
('adwords' in internet advertising containing any mark incorporating Plaintiff's Mark &&
hall, when purchasing internet advertising using keywords, adwords or the like, require the activation of the term 'Orion' as negative keywords) ||
negative adwords in any internet advertising purchased or used.
END
I may need to debug that...
Re:Editors please Edit! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Appeal in 3..2..1.. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I smell a Loop hole (Score:5, Informative)
the judge specifically said "internet advertising". and s/he used the phrase "keywords, adwords, or the like". to suggest that the ruling applies only to google adwords is flagrant trolling. i don't know how anyone could possibly interpret the statement in the ruling as being constrained to google.
sheesh. how this got modded "interesting" is beyond me.
Re:Orion Bankcorp: Crybabies (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Orion Bankcorp: Crybabies (Score:5, Informative)
Nobody is likely to ask a friend for "Kleenex," hoping to get a specific brand of tissue, but it is common to ask for "a kleenex," just as somebody might ask for "a bandaid."
People in various places also refer to "a frigidaire" or "a coke," and plenty of terms that started out as trademarks have been lost to common words: aspirin, cellophane, dumpster, escalator, nylon, linoleum, thermos, velcro, zipper.
This ignores the law (Score:1, Informative)
If I start "Skiff Bank" then build it up, then several years later someone starts "Skiff Financial Services" then absolutely that's a trademark infringement. Stop stealing my name, SFS, and go pick your own name instead of trying to confuse the public into walking into your store because the public has a good impression of my name.
Who remembers (2:erocS)? (Score:5, Informative)