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Google lawsuit over Vuitton rival keyword promotion
Google could be in trouble for selling high ranking keywords such as “vuitton” online without the trademark owner’s permission.
The internet giant has been brought to the European Court of Justice by LVMH, the umbrella company which owns the Louis Vuitton fashion brand.
LVMH claims that rival companies will be able to hamper Keyword Promotion of some of its top brands by monopolising ownership of keywords which the company says it owns through trademark rights. LVMH’s online Brand Positioning could suffer as a result.
Google appealed the original lawsuit which was seen at the French Court of Cassation. The search engine said that it respected all trademarks in its Online Advertising AdWords scheme but the case is likely to drag on for many months as evidence is heard.
This is not the first time French companies have battled against Google. Four years ago, Google was fined €75,000 as compensation to French travel companies Luteciel and Viaticum.
Both companies sued Google when their trademarked names were being used in Online Marketing to promote rival companies through sponsored links.
LVMH previously won a lawsuit against internet auction house eBay for selling fake copies of their Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior and Givenchy brands. eBay was forced to pay €40 million for failing to prevent the counterfeit sales.
Commenting on the case brought against Google, the BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones said these lawsuits were spitefully hitting out against Google’s market dominance: “There’s also concern from media firms and from privacy campaigners about a firm which has a huge share of online advertising, and knows an awful lot about millions of web users.”
Corporate Internet news posted by Burt Ernstein on 19 March 2009
