MercuryNews.com reported last week that Google won a major sponsored keyword trademark case against Rescuecom. Judge Norman Mordue of U.S. District Court, northern district of New York, went “against all four precedent rulings” on this case, said Eric Goldman. Specifically, the court said, “Defendant’s internal use of plaintiff’s trademark trigger sponsored links is not a use of a trademark…because there is no allegation that defendant places plaintiff’s trademarks on any goods, containers, displays, or advertisements, or that its internal use is visible to the public.” Eric Goldman explained that the court used the 1-800 Contacts precedent in this case to reject pretty much all of Rescuecom’s claims. Bottom line is that this is a major win for Google and can be used in future cases as a precedent to those cases.
Postscript Barry: Here is a link to the court document as a PDF.