Google Suggest: complete U-turn of French practice

Written by Jean Philippe Bresson Monday, 23 August 2010 09:33

The Court of First Instance of Paris made a complete U-turn in the French practice with a decision of July 22, 2010 which denied Google’s liability.

Omnium Finance had sued Google France and Google Inc for trademark infringement and harm to its company name because internet users searching for ‘OMNIUM’ or ‘OMNIUM FINANCE’ were given the suggestions ‘Omnium Finance arnaque’ (i.e. ‘Omnium Finance rip-off’) or ‘Omnium Finance escroquerie’ (i.e. ‘Omnium Finance swindle’) by the Google Suggest tool.

Google AdWords: French Supreme Court position after ECJ’s findings

Written by Jean Philippe Bresson Thursday, 12 August 2010 09:00

Following the decision of the ECJ issued on March 23, 2010, the French Supreme Court has ruled on July 13, 2010, in four cases, that Google’s AdWords system did not infringe the trademarks of plaintiffs Louis Vuitton, CNRRH, GIFAM and Viaticum by selling them as keywords and displaying advertisements.

The Supreme Court confirmed the ECJ's finding that a trademark owner is entitled to prohibit advertisers from advertising, on the basis of a keyword identical, or similar to, a registered trademark, goods or services identical to those for which that mark is registered.

The decisions will make it more difficult for trademarks owners to enforce their rights, as they will have to file suit against any advertiser. The decisions also confirm that Google will be held liable only if it was aware of the illegal character of the data stored and failed to take action. The decisions follow a general trend whereby the courts have found that service providers, such as eBay, were not liable for trademark infringement.

eBay: Act IV in the battle of LVMH

Written by Jean Philippe Bresson Tuesday, 02 March 2010 14:48

First Instance Court just upheld last Thursday (Feb 11, 2010) in favor of LVMH, granting them damages of 200.000 €.

The circumstances of the matter are indeed quite similar with those of the earlier ruling of September 18, 2009. In the decision of September, several companies of the Louis Vuitton Group which sued eBay for trademark infringement because of the reservation on several search engines (GOOGLE, MSN and AOL SEARCH) of key words reproducing and imitating trademarks hold by these companies such as “Ange ou demon”, “Hot Couture”, “L’heure bleue”, “(parfum) Habit rouge” or “Kenzo” which drove internet users to eBay.fr and eBay.com websites. In decision of Last Thursday, LVMH also complained about reservations of keywords on various search engines.

The solution also seems to be the same between last Thursday findings and the findings of last September: use of the marks was then regarded as serving only a promotional purpose and excluded any informative approach. The judge considered that only an informative approach could have rendered necessary a reference to the marks involved.

So what’s new in comparison with these previous findings? First, no trademark of sub companies was involved. The claim was based on the reputed trademark, the company name, the board sign and even the domain name for the house mark and brand “LOUIS VUITTON” only. So everything was just around the “LOUIS VUITTON” sign but with a larger nature of earlier signs raised. Secondly, whereas the Court granted “only” a total of 60.000 € to Louis Vuitton group in September, the Judge allowed this time 200.000 € as damages.

More detailed are yet to come but this truly shows the definitive willingness of LVMH.

eBay pays €1.7 million fine to LVMH for breaching injunction

Written by Jean Philippe Bresson Tuesday, 22 December 2009 16:56

Trade court of Paris - November 30, 2009

The French Trade Court of Paris upheld on November 30, 2009, a fine of 1.700.00 € against eBay: the auction site failed to take sufficient and appropriate measures so as to comply with the injunctions resulting from the decision of June 30, 2008, ruling eBay liability and granting LVMH claim.

On June 30, 2008, eBay was condemned to pay almost 40 millions of Euros to LVMH for infringing their selective distribution networks. eBay was regarded as having the obligation to ascertain that its activities did not involve illegal situations. The active interventions of eBay while helping for descriptions, presentations and positions of sellers together with selling advices for perfume products compromised the coherence of the distribution networks and were regarded as possibly lacking of respect for the products and trademarks at hands which carried some prestige.

In this June 30, 2008, decision, the Court ordered eBay to stop:

-          The broadcast of auctions for the plaintiffs perfumes or for products presented as such ;

-          The use by eBay sellers of the trademarks of the plaintiffs in particular in titles and descriptions of the products.

Each of these orders was submitted to a fine of 50.000€ per day in case eBay failed to comply with them. LVMH considered eBay had not taken sufficient measures to comply with the Court decision brought the matter before the Trade Court of Paris. The Court found that, since last ruling, 1300 auctions advertised cosmetics and perfumes in relation to the plaintiffs. eBay vainly raised its human efforts consisting in employing 87 people dedicated to the question at hands.

This new decision has been upheld under a procedural angle. But it demonstrates the extent of LVMH willingness in the battle engaged against eBay. After its victory on June 30, 2008, we previously reported that LVMH also succeeded in suing eBay for the non-authorized use of trademarks as keywords in various search engines (Paris Court of First Instance, September 18, 2009). The decision above is the third step forward in favor of LVMH.