Google Wins Trademark Dispute - American Airlines Joins the Fray
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Perhaps one of the reasons that American Blinds was willing to step back was that it knew a more powerful opponent had just entered the ring against Google. American Airlines is suing Google, making the same claims that American Blinds did -- that the search engine is selling its trademarks as keywords to third parties who use them to position their ads in Google's AdWords service.
Some analysts seem to be salivating over this lawsuit, while others aren't convinced it will play out too differently from the one with American Blinds. For example, Follow the Media noted that "Drawing things out for as long as possible to dry up legal funding and take obsessive amounts of management time won't work" as it has with smaller opponents; AA has the money to hire copyright lawyers every bit as smart and talented as the ones employed by Google. So it could go to court and get very interesting.
Other observers disagree. Goldman makes some important observations about the case in his blog. He suspects that at least a few of AA's examples involve broad matching on the word "airlines," which may not be actionable. Furthermore, one of the airline's complaints is that many of the advertisements triggered by its trademarks lead to sites that sell tickets for both AA and its rivals. That's a legitimate use of AA's trademark; as Goldman points out, "Any retailer can advertise that it sells X even though, in its store, it displays X next to competitive offerings."
Goldman thinks this could be a very costly lawsuit for American Airlines. The company is a Google customer, and Goldman wonders if AA has ever used third party trademarks as keywords. He notes that "plenty of keyword plaintiffs have engaged in such duplicity, and I'd be surprised if American Airlines has run a completely clean shop."
Philip M. Stone, writing for Follow the Media, observed that AA issued a statement after filing the lawsuit that tried to portray the dispute almost as a simple misunderstanding between friends. "The business issue American has with Google is not related to their overall business model. Rather, the dispute is centered on Google's process of allowing other companies to purchase the right to use American Airlines trademarks for Internet search. In working through this business dispute, American is hopeful that it will continue professional, friendly and fruitful relationships with Google, while finding an appropriate resolution to the trademark issues." Stone figures that the lawsuit was the airline's way of "playing hardball" with Google after talks between the two companies on the issue did not progress as AA had hoped.
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