Google Wins European Trademark Victory

adeelarshad82 writes "A European court has ruled in Google's favor, saying that allowing advertising customers to use the names of other companies as search keywords does not represent a trademark violation. The court also went on to say that Google's AdWords program is protected by a European law governing Internet hosting services. Google's main line of defense was claiming that companies that want to extend trademark law to keywords are really interested in 'controlling and restricting the amount of information that users may see in response to their searches.' The decision is the first in a series of decisions from the court about how trademark rights can be used to restrict information available to users. Google is currently battling several trademark keyword cases in the US, including a case against Rosetta Stone, Inc."

There. Another sensible judgment from Eu

[unity100]

it is clear as day that we all, american and european alike, need to gather behind Eu in order to bring sense into this intellectual property insensibility.

Re:Like TV

[Rogerborg]

They traditionally didn't, but AFAICT there's no prohibition against it. Note that supermarkets now make direct comparisons with each other.

Re:Ah yes

[Mindcontrolled]

From reading way to many decisions of the European Court lately, I doubt that. Judging by the style of those decisions, those guys there are more machine than human - long, exceedingly dry, scholarly analyses on usually a very solid legal-theoretical basis. I think they do a pretty good job in the IP field. An influence by reputation would be so subtle that it is virtually undetectable. I'll have a look at that decision later - gotta read it sooner or later anyway.