A federal judge has ruled that the rights of trademark holders are violated when their terms are used by others in search ads, reports CNET.
The case involved text ads run by jewelry retailer Zale that included the term "dating ring." That phrase is trademarked by John Hamzik, who filed the suit. The judge agreed that Hamzik's trademark had indeed been violated.
The major point highlighted by the court is the use of the trademarked term as part of the actual ad copy. Previous lawsuits have been dismissed but they simply used trademarked terms to trigger ads and did not display them within the ads themselves. That's a major difference, especially since Google allows a company to block competitor's ads that contain a trademarked term.
