Google Wins Brand Name Trademark Case.

Google’s victory this week at The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg ends a long-running legal battle with major brand, Louis Vuitton. The ruling in their favour means Google did not infringe brand owners’ rights by allowing advertisers to buy keywords corresponding to trademarks.

Recently referred to on the Provoke blog, the buying of a sponsored link on a high profile brand name keyword, such as Louis Vuitton or Levis, for example, has been often the most successful of online marketing tactics and particularly cost effective, as the retail stockists do not pay for using the brand name.

However, the European Court also cautioned online businesses who use trademarked brand keywords to boost sales traffic that henceforth, the identity of the seller must be made clear to the website visitor, adding, ” Advertisers… cannot, by using such keywords, arrange for Google to display ads which do not allow internet users easily to establish from which undertaking the goods or services covered by the ad in question, originate”.

Louis Vuitton had contested Google’s legality in allowing third parties to bid for and use brand names as keywords to trigger ads and attract visitors to the bidder’s website. The case was potentially critical to Google‘s AdWords, its core business model.

The outcome could influence website design and SEO marketing agencies who provide essential PPC services to their eCommerce business clients.

On their own official blog, Google have themselves commented it was in the best interests of consumers not to have certain keywords blocked from use by advertisers, stating ” …user interest is best served by maximising the choice of keywords, ensuring relevant and informative advertising for a wide variety of different contexts”.

The absolute vital necessity of link building, either by paid or organic search, as the foundation of all traffic driving on the web means the necessity to protect basic principles of information exchange and the growth of the digital economy.

Google added, “Some companies want to limit choice for users by extending trade mark law to encompass the use of keywords in online advertising. Ultimately they want to be able to exercise greater control over the information available to users by preventing other companies from advertising when a user enters their trademark as a search query. In other words, controlling and restricting the amount of information that users may see in response to their searches”.

The European Courts of Justice ruling demonstrates that freedom of wordsearch is upheld to advertiser and user alike, for the forseeable future.