Volume I

Issue : 7: October 2, 2003

• Legg Mason Ordered to Pay $20 Million in E-Newsletter Copyright Action
• The California Court of Appeals Upholds Regulation Requiring Electronic Fingerprinting of Welfare Recipients.
• U.S. Court of Appeals Stays Injunction Against Telemarketing "Do-Not-Call" List
• Parents Sue School District for Use of Wi-Fi
• Court Bars Minnesota from Regulating VoIP Provider
• New York Man Sentenced to Jail for Online Sale of Copyrighted Music
• U. S. Supreme Court Rejects Appeal in the Rambus Patent Standards Interface Fight
• EU Releases Privacy Study
• U.S. Supreme Court to Revisit COPA
• U.S. Court Of Appeals 4th Circuit Finds Insurance Policys Property Damage Provision Does Not Extend To Damage To Or By Software.
• Google France Chastised for Sale of Trademarked Keywords

Home > Volume I > Issue 7: October 2, 2003 > Google France Chastised for Sale of Trademarked Keywords

Google France Chastised for Sale of Trademarked Keywords

On October 13, 2003 the Nanterre High Court ordered Google France to pay 70,000 euros in damages to two travel agencies, Luteciel and Viaticum, for trademark infringement after it found that advertisers had been allowed to tie their text notices to trademarked search terms owned by the companies. Google France had sold the use of those trade-marked terms to advertisers through its Adwords program, which allowed companies and individuals to place advertisements on the Google homepage that appear when a specific search term is used. The French court concluded that Google France had violated the country's intellectual property code, which translated to English, "prohibits, in the absence of authorization of its owner, the use of a trade-mark for products or services identical to those indicated in the recording" and rejected Google France's defence that the search engine was marketed by Google Inc. and hosted in the United States.

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