EU Court Rules on Ad Keywords

Europe's highest court July 8 confirmed an earlier ruling that companies using the names of their competitors as Internet advertising keywords are not infringing European trademark laws. Thursday's ruling is in line with a recent judgment by the court in a case luxury-goods maker Louis Vuitton brought against Google. That ruling established that simply buying or selling such search keywords as Google's Adwords didn't violate the trademarks they were related to. In the Louis Vuitton case, however, the court also noted that advertisers can't use such keywords to have Google or other search engines 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."