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Intellectual Property

2004-01 UPDATE - Market Snapshots of the WEB

January 2004. Playboy sued Netscape in 1999 for trademark infringement and lost, after which the ad-serving industry felt able to bid on search-term keywords that represented a competitor's brand. This means that if you search for Brand X, brand Y's ads may appear, triggered by the Brand X keyword. The appellate court has now reversed the trial decision, setting one benchmark for the standard of "consumer brand confusion" that may be useful in guiding the paid-search industry. Amid many lawsuits and much legal confusion, Google has sought a declaratory judgment in federal court that its Adwords system does not constitute trademark infringement. Google removes ads using keywords it deems to promote brand confusion and obligates its advertisers to obey trademark law, while allowing companies the chance to object to misuse of their trademarks. The law is not yet settled.
-source: DM News

2003-07 UPDATE - Market Snapshots of the WEB

July 2003. A federal court dismissed U-Haul's lawsuit against interception-ware advertiser WhenU, the full reasoning was not yet available. WhenU and its competitor Gator specialize in blocking ads presented by a website and substituting their own network ads instead. This is made possible by software installed on the user's computer, usually without the user's specific knowledge, bundled in with other free software, notably Kazaa. Gator has lost or settled lawsuits brought against it thus far, and several more are pending. The legal situation remains unclear.
-source: AdLaw (Hall Dickler)

[NOTE. The above item is replicated in Exploitation snapshots.

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