ECJ Advocate General sides with Google, web advertisers

The ECJ Advocate General, Poiares Maduro, has just issued an opinion in the Joined Cases C‑236/08, C‑237/08 and C‑238/08

Google France

Google Inc.

v

Louis Vuitton Malletier



Google France

v

Viaticum

Luteciel



Google France

v

CNRRH

Pierre‑Alexis Thonet

Bruno Raboin

Tiger, a franchisee of Unicis

The AG effectively seems to say (disclaimer - I've only very quickly scanned the judgement) that Google, other search engines and web advertisers cannot be held responsible for trademark infringement by virtue of their choice of keywords.

"The question, as put to the Court, is whether the use of a keyword which corresponds to a trade mark can, in itself, be regarded as a use of that trade mark which is subject to the consent of its proprietor...

48. The goal of trade mark proprietors is to extend the scope of trade mark protection to cover actions by a party that may contribute to a trade mark infringement by a third party. This is usually known in the United States as ‘contributory infringement’, (19) but to my knowledge such an approach is foreign to trade mark protection in Europe, where the matter is normally addressed through the laws on liability. (20)

49. The trade mark proprietors are urging the Court to go even further: to rule, in effect, that the mere possibility that a system – in the present cases, AdWords – may be used by a third party to infringe a trade mark means that such a system is, itself, in infringement. Indeed, the trade mark proprietors do not wish to limit their claims to cases where AdWords is actually used by sites offering counterfeit goods; they want to nip that possibility in the bud by preventing Google from being able to make keywords corresponding to their trade marks available for selection. From the existence of a risk that AdWords may be used to promote those counterfeit sites, they deduce a general right to prevent the use of their trade marks as keywords. If the infringement lies in the use of those keywords in AdWords, as the trade mark proprietors claim, that is so whether or not the sites displayed in response actually infringe the trade mark.

50. The Court is thus being asked to expand significantly the scope of trade mark protection. I shall make clear why I believe that it ought not to do so. My examination of the question whether there is trade mark infringement will reveal, first, that the use in AdWords of keywords which correspond to trade marks does not, in itself, constitute a trade mark infringement, and, secondly, that the connection with other (potentially infringing) uses is better addressed, as it has been hitherto, through the rules on liability...

III – Conclusion

155. In view of the above, I propose that the Court state in answer to the questions referred by the Cour de cassation:

(1) The selection by an economic operator, by means of an agreement on paid internet referencing, of a keyword which will trigger, in the event of a request using that word, the display of a link proposing connection to a site operated by that economic operator for the purposes of offering for sale goods or services, and which reproduces or imitates a trade mark registered by a third party and covering identical or similar goods, without the authorisation of the proprietor of that trade mark, does not constitute in itself an infringement of the exclusive right guaranteed to the latter under Article 5 of First Council Directive 89/104/EEC of 21 December 1988 to approximate the laws of the Member States relating to trade marks.

(2) Article 5(1)(a) and (b) of Directive 89/104 and Article 9(1)(a) and (b) of Council Regulation (EC) No 40/94 of 20 December 1993 on the Community trade mark must be interpreted as meaning that a trade mark proprietor may not prevent the provider of a paid referencing service from making available to advertisers keywords which reproduce or imitate registered trade marks or from arranging under the referencing agreement for advertising links to sites to be created and favourably displayed, on the basis of those keywords.

(3) In the event that the trade marks have a reputation, the trade mark proprietor may not oppose such use under Article 5(2) of Directive 89/104 and Article 9(1)(c) of Regulation No 40/94.

(4) The provider of the paid referencing service cannot be regarded as providing an information society service consisting in the storage of information provided by the recipient of the service within the meaning of Article 14 of Directive 2000/31/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2000 on certain legal aspects of information society services, in particular electronic commerce, in the internal market (‘Directive on electronic commerce’)."

The AG's detailed analysis is exhaustive (some might say exhausting!) and technical but the decision seems to come down to :

Q: Can the use of a keyword which corresponds to a trade mark, in itself, be regarded as a use of that trade mark which is subject to the consent of its proprietor?

A: No.

I really need to escape my IP addiction. I have absolutely no time to be reviewing these kinds of cases at the moment, so look to the usual suspects for a proper analysis.