Google Wins Trademark Dispute - Tantalizing Points
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There are a couple of points worth noting that may perhaps be peripheral to AA's lawsuit, but which are interesting nonetheless. First of all, if it wants to get help from American Blinds, it will have to subpoena the company -- even if American Blinds wants to help. In the home decorating company's agreement with Google, it expressly states that "ABWF shall not take any steps to voluntarily assist any other party in asserting any claims against Google. This provision shall not preclude...ABWF providing information in response to a subpoena or Court order, provided that ABWF complies with any confidentiality obligations imposed independent of this Agreement..."
It's tempting to point to this as evidence of some kind of "divide and conquer" strategy on Google's part. I am not a lawyer, however, and I haven't seen anyone else single out this stipulation for special attention. Therefore, I'm forced to guess that this is simply some kind of legal boilerplate -- designed, perhaps, to prevent American Blinds from pursuing the lawsuit further in other venues or by other means.
The second point worth noting is American Airline's main legal counsel. He's Terence Ross, and he's handled keyword lawsuits before, going up against adware companies. Granted, he didn't win, but that experience will still serve him in good stead. What's more, he's on record as being against Google's revised AdWords policy toward trademarks. Of the change in policy, he said that "That was then seen as almost a declaration of war on trademark owners."
So is Google prepared to go to war? It will almost certainly try to head one off if it can. A year after changing its AdWords policy, Google went public, and its stock skyrocketed. It continues to perform amazingly well. Goldman puts the matter plainly: "Google can't be a multibillion-dollar company if they disable trademarked keywords at anyone's request." Don't be surprised if the case with American Airlines is settled out of court, too -- Google simply can't afford to see a bad precedent set in an American court.
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