Last June, the Provincial Court of Madrid submitted a trademark infringement case using Google’s tool called “AdWords.” More specifically, in this situation, CLINICAS ORTODONCIS sued LABORATORIOS LUCAS NICOLÁS due to the latter’s use of the previous trademark as a keyword for its advertising, regarded as a backed hyperlink. At the same time, the internet seeks on Google’s engine the period brought as a keyword.
The Google AdWords gadget is well-known nowadays. It “allows any financial operator, by way of the selection of 1 or more keywords, to obtain the setting, inside the event of a correspondence among one or more of these words and that/those entered as a request in the seek engine by using an internet consumer, of an advertising link to its internet site”1. A Google-backed hyperlink has the subsequent shape: A hyperlinked textual content that ends in the advertiser’s web site, an “ad” disclaimer next to the advertiser’s internet site cope with and, finally, a business text.
The defendant alleged that it had not hired using “orthodontics” as a keyword for its backed ad. Therefore, it should have resulted from a failure of the gadget. The Court did not overlook the possibility of an occasion like this to arise, but it reminded LABORATORIOS weights proof. In contrast, the plaintiff has provided pieces of evidence for his allegations.
In the absence of the latest proof, the Court concluded established using the claimant that LABORATORIOS LUCAS had i) hired Google AdWords service, ii) used “orthodontics” as a keyword, and iii) included CLINICAS ORTODONCIS’ trademark as a part of the hyperlinked commercial text that headed the backed advert link.
Following this, the Provincial Court of Madrid denied applying Unfair Competition guidelines, given the registered trademark holder’s rights, contrary to what the Judge in the First Instance had dominated.
As a result of the supplied evidence, the Court envisioned that the applicant’s trademark is related through the public to the internet site addresses of the defendant, wherein the latter promotes its services. The offerings come from the equal supply or two exclusive service providers that proportion an economic hyperlink.
This selection is not anything but sudden when compared to super precedent decisions from the Spanish Supreme Court (Decision 541/2017, 15th February 2017, Orona S. Coop v. City Lift, S.A.) and the Court of Justice of the European Union—23rd March 2010 (Lv—Google); 25th of March 2010 (Bergspechte); 8th of July 2010 (Portakabin—Primakabin); and 22nd of September 2011 (Interflora—Mark & Spencer’s) -.
The above-mentioned choices went through a scrupulous evaluation that determined not only if the claimants’ trademarks had been used as keywords or appeared in the subsidized hyperlink but also if these took part “in a way in which that advertisement is presented, ” as expressed in Interflora.
That function is adversely affected if the commercial does now not enable moderately properly knowledgeable and fairly observant internet customers or enables them handiest with difficulty, to check whether the goods or services referred to by the commercial originate from the proprietor of the trademark or a mission economically linked to it or, on the contrary, originate from a third party (Google France and Google, paragraphs 83 and eighty-four, and Portakabin, paragraph 34). In one of these states of affairs.
That is, furthermore, characterized by the truth that the advertisement appears right now after the alternate mark has been entered as a search term and is displayed at a point while the alternate mark is, in its capacity as a seek period, additionally displayed at the screen, the internet consumer may be incorrect as to the origin of the goods or offerings in the query (Google France and Google, paragraph 85). The Appeal Court considered that, in this case, using the competitor’s mark as a keyword had crossed those red lines drawn by the CJEU and, consequently, concluded that an indicator infringement (and no longer unfair opposition) took place.
