Google wins round one of ECJ adwords case
22 September 2009
Emma Barraclough, London
The advocate general at Europe’s highest court has backed Google’s decision to sell adwords that use third party trade marks
ECJ Advocate General Luís Miguel Poiares Pessoa Maduro gave his opinion on three linked cases referred from France’s Cour de Cassation between Google France and a number of brand owners including LVMH.
The cases address Article 5 of the Trade Mark Directive, and the referring court has asked questions including whether the use of a trade mark in Google’s AdWords programme constitutes infringement and whether a trade mark owner can prevent a provider such as Google from making keywords available to advertisers.
The advocate general said that Google has not committed a trade mark infringement by allowing advertisers to select, in AdWords, keywords corresponding to trade marks on the grounds that when selecting keywords no product or service is being...
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