Internet Trademark Case Summaries

American Airlines, Inc. v. Google, Inc.

No. 4:07-cv-00487 (N.D. Tex. Oct. 24, 2007)

This case involved Google's "AdWords" program, which allows advertisers to purchase other parties' trademarks as keywords to trigger their paid advertisements, called "sponsored links," that appear above or separate from the natural search results.  American Airlines sued Google, claiming that Google's sale of American's marks as AdWords keywords constituted trademark infringement and other violations because it mislead customers, who were searching for American, into clicking on competitors' advertising links due to their position as a sponsored link at the top of the search-results page.  Google moved to dismiss, claiming that: (1) its sales of American's marks as keyword search terms did not constitute a "use" of American's marks for Lanham Act purposes because the marks did not actually appear on the sponsored advertisements, (2) the Lanham Act did not apply because Google was not a competitor of American and did not actually provide the keywords, and (3) it could not be held liable for infringement under the Communications Decency Act for content supplied by third parties.  The court denied Google's motion in a one-page order without any analysis.