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American Airlines sues Google
Google gets brought to court again in this classic case of trademark infringement for sponsored ads. This time American Airlines is in the high flying plaintiff's seat.American Airlines have dropped a trademark case on Google's doorstep because Google allowed the purchasing and bidding on their trademarked name, which just happens to be two generic names butted together. What will the outcome be? Maybe just a little bad PR for AA.
Keywords brought to the table include:
- American Airlines
- Free AA Travel Offers
- americanairlines.com
- American Air Lines
Comments
2
Subscribe to commentsSemreportcardAug 21st 2007 1:31PM
Kudos to American Airlines for bringing the suit. A lot of search marketers and agencies are ignorant to the significance of trademark protection, until they themselves have issues.
Search marketers seems to think that these trademark suits are fruitless, but that mentality couldn’t be farther than the truth.
In 2005, Google was forced to change their trademark advertising policy after a devastating blow from a federal district court in the Geico Case. The court stated:
“…the district court found that the “extremely high” percentage of respondents who experienced some degree of confusion when viewing these advertisements was sufficient to show that there was a likelihood of confusion present when GEICO’s marks appeared in either the heading or the text of a Sponsored Link advertisement.”
“Google advised the district court that it had no contrary evidence. Thus, the district court held that GEICO had established a likelihood of confusion and had therefore shown that Google violated the Lanham Act with regard to those Sponsored Link advertisements that included GEICO’s marks in the headings or text.”
Google then settled with Geico to avoid a tumultuous threat to their business model and quickly changed their trademark policy to reflect the wisdom of the court.
This issue is not going to go away, because trademark infringement in the ads of search is very real and damaging. If it rolls into a class action, the search engines will face astounding costs in compensatory damages. They are much better off updating policies to halt the brokering of trademarks–for once I agree with France.
JOCKSep 19th 2007 5:24PM
As usual, American Airlines is determined to stay on top. Without AA tooting their own horn all the time, I am sure they would just fade off into the distance never to be remembered. I very seldom ever read anything positive about AA. Well, I guess if the keep putting themselves in the limelight, they will continue to get manipulated notariety. I have had the unfortunate opportunity of meeting several of their pilots and crew. Believe me, it was an aweful experience. They were pushy and extremely arrogant. Maybe if AA wins money they can send some of their crews to charm school. I am sure they have good pilots, but the people that I met left a bad taste in my mouth. I will never fly this line again.