22 August 2007
A lawsuit in a Texas court filed by American Airlines describes Google’s US trademark policy as "manifestly deficient" and harmful to business with its policy of allowing the sale of keywords that help other companies mislead consumers.
This isn’t the first case that Google has seen of this nature, American Airlines is just the latest in a series of brand holders to sue over Google’s Adwords.
Registered trademarks including American Airlines, American Eagle, AA and AA.com are being used as keywords by other companies to prompt a conflicting advert (to American Airlines) when a user searches on the above terms.
The lawsuit states that this is infringement of the American Airlines trademark, and goes onto complain that Google has different policies for different parts of the world, with the US and Canada having the least protection.
An American Airlines statement explains:
The dispute is centred on Google's process of allowing other companies to purchase the right to use American Airlines trademarks for Internet search,
American Airlines wants to make it clear that its dispute does not seek to prevent the display of search results that reflect consumers' interests or choices. American Airlines is only asking Google to stop selling our trademarks to others who are purchasing them and related terms to confuse and/or divert consumers searching for AA.com or American's products.
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