Google wins key AdWords victory

Google on Tuesday won an important legal victory in its battle with brand owners over its Adwords service when Europe's top court found that its activity did not amount to trademark infringement.

The European Court of Justice ruling will be a relief to the US-based company, which obtains a large proportion of its income for the service. However, the court did rule that advertisers themselves could not, by using trademarked keywords, arrange for the search company to display advertisements which do not allow Internet users to easily establish from whom the goods or services in the advertisement originated.