So I know I haven’t been posting and I’m sorry. I was trying to perfect a post on Google Adwords and trademark law, but life got in the way.
In an interesting turn of events the 2nd Circuit court just issued its opinion in Rescuecom v. Google. The court held that Google Adwords may be “use in commerce” and reversed the lower courts 12b6 dismissal.
After thinking long and hard about search engine keywords I think that Google’s use of trademarks fails all three elements of trademark infringement:
1. use in commerce
2. in connection with a sale
3. likelihood of confusion
but more on that to come soon (hopefully…) In the meantime check out the court’s opinion
and/or Eric Goldman’s analysis
