In both the EU and the US, trademark owners have sued search engine operators for using their trademarks as triggers in competitive keyword advertising. EU and US courts have taken a different approach to search engine operator liability for such invisible keyword use. The article outlines these...

Keyword search advertising occurs when an advertiser pays a search engine to link a particular keyword to its website. Keywords are often trademarks and some mark owners have objected to the search engines' practice of selling their marks as keywords without permission. Trademark doctrine...

The typical scenario of keywording involves a trilateral structure of legal positions. The mark holder is the party that has trademark rights in the term that is used as a keyword. The search engine is the entity that provides search tools to Internet users, usually for free, helping them to...

Most Internet searches result in unpaid (organic or algorithmic) results, and paid ads. The specific ads that are displayed are dictated by the user’s search terms (“keywords”). In 2004, Google began offering trademarks for use as keywords on an unrestricted basis, followed in due course...

For well over a century, U.S. trademark law has afforded brand owners certain rights, remedies and obligations. As the Department of Commerce has noted, owners of trademarks have both a legal right and an affirmative obligation to protect their trademarks from unauthorized third-party use....