The succinct story: According to an Israeli judge, a company can advertise using keywords which include the name of a second company. The long version: The fashion company "crazy line" bought ads from google israel using the keywords "mat'im li" (in hebrew, literally meaning "fits me") together with the english letters "ml". The "Mat'im li" fashion company didn't like it, and sued crazy line. They lost and were asked to pay about 20,000$ in court expenses. The judge's argumentation included: - The terms used are not registered trademarks of mat'im li. - Crazy line didn't cause the surfer to think that crazy line products are actually mat'im li products, such that they didn't affect (i.e., degrade or "dilute") the name of mat'om li. - Last, the surfer is not forced to the first company's site. He is still left with a choice to click the ad or not (and he is informed it is an ad). The judge said it is a like a shopper going to buy shoes and on his way he sees an ad for a second store. Namely, he is exposed to another ad, which is legitimate under fair competition. Incidentally, current "מת××™× ×œ×™ ml" search on google.co.il brings ads from a third fashion company (this one unknown). I guess they read the news and quickly acted... Interesting questions: - What would happen in the USA (or other countries) under similar circumstances? - What if the company's name was a registered trademark, can you use trademarked adsense keywords?
Depends if the company name is a registered trade mark, and if the (dictionary) word usage makes sense even though the combination of words is a trademark.
Well, Israel does have less lawyers per capita than the US does (but unfortunately the number is growing fast). Incidentally, an Argentinean friend once told me that he prefers a corrupt judge over a stupid jury. In Israel there is no jury, just very (ridiculously) merciful judges.