American Blinds Realizes That It Was About To Lose Google Keyword Ad Suit
from the er,-can-we-go-home-now? dept
Just a week or so after American Airlines was the latest in a long list of companies to incorrectly sue Google claiming that Google violated its trademarks in allowing others to buy keyword ads on the trademark "american airlines," one of the more well known cases in this realm has come to a close. American Blinds was one of the more prominent companies who had fighting Google. Again, the complaint was both wrong and misdirected. It's only trademark infringement if the ad would confuse people into believing the ad was from American Blinds when it's not... and even in that case, the fault lies with the advertiser, rather than Google. After years of fighting, it appears that the folks at American Blinds finally realized its chances of winning were close to nil, and have agreed to settle the case, with Google paying absolutely nothing. In other words, American Blinds spent a ton of money in legal costs and ended up with nothing. As Eric Goldberg points out in the link above, some people would have liked a judges ruling that could be used as precedent out of this case -- but even this settlement should hopefully alert other companies not to follow American Airlines down this questionable legal strategy.
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Filed Under: keyword ads, trademark
Companies: american blinds, google
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Idiots
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Perfect example of large corporation
New is unsafe and unknown, it scares leaders because it could lead to change. If you are on top, then change of the status quo is bad, so new is bad, unsafe is bad, unknown is bad because all lead to change and change is bad.
Google has learned to embrace the future and profit from it.
Large Corporations go after the messenger not the message; sue the ISP not the content; arrest the one who shares music and not the one who steals the music.
One thing is for certain, the future holds change, you can either surf the change or have the wave roll over you.
The truly successful people are the ones who not just surf the wave of future, but excel at it.
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Bleh
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Re:
Not sure! =D
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Re: Idiots
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Nothing??
I wouldn't say they got nothing. I had never heard of American Blinds before and now I have (along with a few million other people). How much does advertising like that usually cost? Remember, there's no such thing as bad publicity.
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Re:
No, they are two separate companies. American Blinds sued Google years ago and just settled. American Airlines sued Google just last week and will probably be forced to settle (or lose its case) eventually as well.
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Re: Nothing??
Wow, this blog really is popular....
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Re: Nothing??
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Re: Re: Idiots
It seems like they should be held accountable for taking their clients money for a legal suit they should know they can't win.
And if they don't know it, they shouldn't be representing them anyway.
EtG
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Wait a second...
Wait a second... if there is any fault, Google IS partially responsible. It's like a locksmith opening a bank vault for some thieves - he can't just shrug his shoulders and disclaim any responsibility!
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