Amid all of the problems that Google has been having with European nations regarding its Street View cars capturing WiFi data (though this PR crisis has certainly not been constrained to Europe), there is some positive legal news for Google today on another Google service, Adwords. According to Google’s European Public Policy Blog, the French Supreme Court has ruled that advertisers in Europe can bid for keywords that are trademarked.
The European Court of Justice, Europe’s highest court, had already ruled in favor of Google back in March on a set of four cases involving keyword trade marks, but as the suit had originated in the France, the case had to be sent back to the French Supreme Court for a final ruling, which came down today in favor of Google.
The Google post goes on to say:
“In addition, the Court went beyond the European Court of Justice by excluding any act of unfair competition or misleading advertising by Google…. All cases that are judged by the Supreme Court are automatically referred to a French Court of Appeal. But the appeal court needs to apply today’s judgement.”
Here is a PDF of the court’s decision (in French).
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