Yet Another Misguided Lawsuit Over Google's AdWords, This Time From Rosetta Stone

from the blame-the-real-party! dept

It's getting a bit tiresome to see these types of lawsuits, but Eric Goldman notes that this appears to be the ninth such lawsuit against Google, claiming trademark violations for allowing people to buy AdWords on trademarked terms (or suggesting them as keywords). This time the company suing is Rosetta Stone, but the complaint is basically the same. In fact, it uses the same lawyers and apparently the same boilerplate language as some previous lawsuits (wonder if they charge full price for reusing the same text?). The problem is the same, however. It's a general misunderstanding of the purpose of trademark law, which does not give the trademark holder full control over the trademark, but merely is designed as consumer protection to stop confusion among buyers or, possibly, dilution of the trademark. But that does not prevent the use in competitive advertisements. And, even if it did the liability would be on the advertising party, and not Google. But Google has the cash, so everyone sues Google.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: adwords, trademarks
Companies: google, rosetta stone


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    taoareyou, 13 Jul 2009 @ 8:45pm

    Their loss

    I'm sure Google has lawyers on the payroll, so the makers of Rosetta Stone are the ones throwing cash away butting their head against a legal wall. Do these lawyers approach the companies? Do they disclose that they have failed every time to make this case but somehow convince these atupid company execs that this time is different?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    taoareyou, 13 Jul 2009 @ 8:47pm

    And Yes

    I know I spelled stupid wrong. :) It's late.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 13 Jul 2009 @ 9:24pm

    They asked for it...

    "But Google has the cash, so everyone sues Google."

    And they're known to be perfectly willing to payoff unfounded lawsuits. That's why everyone sues Google.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Lucretious, 14 Jul 2009 @ 5:39am

    isn't that the same company that got fined by the feds for improper billing practices for its other products?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 14 Jul 2009 @ 12:26pm

    Not to mention the fact that the Rosetta Stone is, according to Wikipedia, "an Ancient Egyptian artifact which was instrumental in advancing modern understanding of hieroglyphic writing". So the company took its name from an already widely used term - why should they expect everyone to suddenly think of them instead of the actual slab of stone? And *plenty* of Google searches might be related to the actual Egyptian artifact, *not* the language learning company. So why shouldn't I be allowed to buy ads using those keywords if I'm a company selling, say, tours of Egypt?

    So, I'm thinking:
    1. Form a company with the same name as some historic site (let's say, Mt. Rushmore)
    2. Get a trademark on my term
    3. Force Google to redirect all searches for that to my website
    4 ...?
    5. Profit?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    David Rothwell, 15 Jul 2009 @ 12:15am

    Rosetta Stone suing Google

    I agree with your article, and the other posts here.

    This practice really is ridiculous, and I expect this one to come to nothing also.

    What would happen if these brand names started showing up in organic results (left hand side of the page) also, say as the result of a product review?

    Would the TM owner then request these pages removed from Google's index?

    I wrote more here
    http://www.adwordsanswers.com/2009/07/13/adwords-and-trademarks-why-is-google-allowing-them-in -the-usa/

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 7 Nov 2012 @ 6:14am

    The actual problem was unscrupulous entities selling bogus or pirated software labeled as Rosetta Stone. How the geniuses at the top conflated it to this is beyond me. Wait, it's not beyond me, they were - and probably are, a bunch of knee jerk fools ready to bite the hand that feeds them at the slightest feel.

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.