Take action - Trade marks can be infringed by a competitor's internet keyword use (but Google claims a victory anyway).

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has given judgment in four cases concerning alleged trade mark infringement via Google's adwords internet advertising service. The ECJ has made it clear that an advertiser paying for an adword that consists of a trade rival's trade mark in order to trigger its own advertisement when a internet surfer uses that trade mark as a search term stands a good chance of infringing that mark.

In contrast, the ECJ has confirmed that in merely providing the adwords service Google does not make use of such trade marks in any relevant way and therefore cannot be primarily liable for trade mark infringement. However, the ECJ's judgment does not rule out the possibility of Google being secondarily liable for the infringing acts of its advertiser clients.

Our IP experts have produced an in-depth analysis of this case and have suggested several action steps that should be considered by all companies with an online presence.