Yet Another Text Ad Trademark Lawsuit Decided Correctly
from the hopefully-a-trend dept
On Monday, we discussed a ruling that said that using trademarked search keywords to show ads from competitors was not a trademark violation, and Eric Goldman has another such case today. This time, the focus was on whether or not such an ad diluted the original trademark, and the ruling found that it did not. In this case, BowFlex sued competitor CrossBow, after CrossBow bought some ads on the term "BowFlex Information" and put up an ad saying "Compare CrossBow to Bowflex." Clicking on the ad took people to a chart comparing the two products. It's difficult to see how that could be considered dilution (or confusing, for that matter), and the judge agreed. We're seeing a lot more of these types of cases these days, and the rulings seem a bit more consistently correct in recognizing that there's no trademark violation here. Hopefully, the trend continues to the point that these lawsuits stop getting filed.
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Thats not fair.
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Re: Thats not fair.
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Doubtful; owners of a trademark are required to fight for it, otherwise they lose it.
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Doubtful; owners of a trademark are required to fight for it, otherwise they lose it.
Obviously that's what they feel, but at the same time that's not true. Suing anyone that used your trademark in some sort of way is not defending it, it's just suing. Defending it comes when the actual use was diluting the trademark or confusing the customer.
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