Google Defeated In French Adwords Case

by Ulrika Lomas, for LawAndTax-News.com, Brussels

31 January 2005

It emerged earlier this month that internet search portal Google has been defeated in the latest in a series of trademark wrangles over its AdWords keyword advertising service.

According to reports in the European media, a French regional court upheld a complaint brought to it by hospitality firm Le Meridien Hotels and Resorts. The court reportedly ordered Google to stop displaying adverts for other firms triggered by the search terms "Meridien", "Le Meridien", or combinations of the phrases with words such as "resort" or "hotel".

However, the term is also the French equivalent of Meridian, the name of a typeface, and the trademark of a separate firm, Meridien Cars. The ruling therefore stated that "Meridien" could be sponsored by the car firm or a typeface vendor, so long as the context in which the word was used was outside the scope of the hotel chain's trademark.

In addition to ordering the search firm to cease the infringing behaviour by January 24, the court ordered Google's French subsidiary to address related infringement problems with its AdWords Keyword Tool, which allows customers to refine their AdWords choices, but also contains trademarks in its automated list of suggestions.

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