Google Fined for Louis Vuitton Trademark Infringement
A French appeals court ruled that Google must pay €300,000 (approximately $383,000) in fines, plus more than €75,000 (approximately $96,000) in legal fees for publishing ads advertising counterfeit Louis Vuitton hand bags through its AdWords contextual advertising system.
Vuitton alleges that Google allowed AdWords advertisers to purchase Louis Vuitton trademarks in order to serve ads against them. Users searching for Louis Vuitton products on Google’s French site would find ads from both Louis Vuitton competitors and from those offering Vuitton knockoffs.
The new ruling and increased fine was a result of an appeal by Google after it was defeated in a lower court and fined €200,000 ($256,000). Google says that it has not allowed advertisers to purchase competitor trademarks as keywords since 2003, and has also banned counterfeit products. Google has removed the ads in question from its French site, but the French court also ruled that Google must remove the ads from all other sites French or otherwise.
€300,000 is assumingly pocket change for Google, which made $6.4 billion last year. But the ruling leads some bloggers to speculate that it may lead to more similar litigation in U.S. courts like the suit filed against Yahoo earlier this month for trademark infringement.
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