The Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit recently shed light on an increasingly common Internet business practice. In 1-800 Contacts, Inc. v. Lens.com, Inc., a panel of the court held that the use of a competitor's trademark to trigger a paid advertisement is unlikely to constitute trademark infringement, provided that the text of the advertisement does not contain the competitor's mark. This decision establishes that, in most circumstances, a company may engage in the practice of keyword advertising by using another company's trademark for the purpose of boosting its own website traffic.
This case involves two competing contact lens retailers. The plaintiff, 1-800 Contacts, owns the federally registered trademark 1800CONTACTS. 1-800 Contacts monitors third party use of the 1800CONTACTS trademark by searching for its mark via the Internet search engine Google. In 2005, 1-800 Contacts noticed that paid ads for defendant Lens.com started appearing among the search results. Significantly, Lens.com never incorporated 1800CONTACTS into the actual text of its sponsored links.
Read it all:
http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/keyword-advertising-email-alert-04359/?utm_source=JFB&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=social_mediaJD Supra Email Alert
