Re: Estee Lauder sues Excite over keywords
When I went to Excite and put in Estee Lauder ... then hit
the reload ... I saw there are two Fragrance Counter ads.
One ad makes no reference to Estee Lauder ... the other one
does.
If we're talking about the ad where EL is mentioned ... you
may have a minor point although I really doubt many
consumers ... and this is the real test ... would confuse
Estee Lauder(tm) with Fragrance Counter(tm).
In fact there may be a larger issue here EL doesn't care to
open. My understanding is the cosmetics industry is a very
controlled industry ... rigid territories, pricing and
advertising policies. FC probably flies in the face of those
policies, which IMO are probably akin to anti-trust
price-fixing regulations, and EL is ticked. After all, they
are as likely to sell product at the FC site as any of the
others that are also listed on the Excite results search
page. In fact, you can't place an order at the Estee Lauder
site.
In the FC ad where Estee Lauder is NOT mentioned ... do you
see a "blurring" here? Since the EL trademark is NOT
displayed, the FC ad is nothing more than a yellow pages ad
appearing on the same page. The blurring reference in the
article I believe is when you take a domain name for Holiday
Inn vs Holiday Inns and actually take them to your site.
Where else do you pay to stop someone from infringing on
your trademark? How about an unlisted telephone number. If
you refuse to pay for an unlisted number, then you WILL be
listed in the white pages. Shouldn't it be the other way
around? You pay if you want to be listed. LOL Now
there's "protection money!"
Should be an interesting litigation.
Karl Zetmeir
President
Interactive Innovations, Inc.
Defining Opportunities ... Delivering Solutions!
V 913-897-7078
F 913-685-3470
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Received on Tue Feb 02 1999 - 06:56:04 CST
