Les Jones

E-commerce > Trademark Infringement Suits Against Google Adwords

Tuesday E-commerce Report #19

Slashdot reports on lawsuits against Google.

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 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.

This is a huge problem for Google because it severely undermines their revenue strategy. It's a huge problem for e-commerce outfits because it makes it difficult to advertise the brands they sell.

Will Google ultimately prevail in these lawsuits? That's a question for the courts to decide, but I can see Louis Vuitton's point. People searching for their products are finding competitors and (potentially, even if it hasn't happened yet) counterfeiters. When Melissa and I were in Manhattan she bought a $20 Louis Vitton knockoff purse that looks just like the real thing.

As I've mentioned before, we've run into this problem with one of the vendors we represent. They don't want their competitors buying Google Adwords for their brand name and trying to bait and switch the customer to another brand. Fair enough, but when a potential customers searches for that brand name (which I won't disclose), they don't find anyone selling the product. Meanwhile, competing products (which we also sell) allow us to advertise their name on Google. Result: more leads and more sales for the competing product. A reasonable compromise would be for the trademark allow authorized resellers to advertise the brand.

Bonus link: eBay's new customer service initiative.