Re: Estee Lauder sues Excite over keywords
RICHARD HOY WROTE:
> In all the above advertising mechanisms, you see both brands
> side-by-side. There is no confusion what brand belongs to
> who. That is not the case in this instance. The nature of
> the keyword buy mechanism is that you ONLY see the ad
> attached to a particular keyword. Thus, you easily cause
> confusion in the marketplace by attaching an ad to a
> competitor's trademarked word.
<SNIP>
> But what is more disturbing to me is the practice of the
> trademark holder having to pay before a search engine will
> take the word away from a competitor. I understand the
> complexity of forcing a search engine to keep track of every
> possible trademark. But extorting money out of me to make it
> stop once the infringement is exposed? That's screwed up.
> Where else in the legitimate business world do I have to pay
> to stop someone from infringing on my trademark?
>
> It's protection money, plain and simple.
>
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I strongly disagree with Richard on this one and fully side
with Karl Zeitmeir.
If one firm holds a trademark, this alone cannot entitle the
firm to monopolize advertising rights (e.g. registered
keywords) of said trademark in all search engines.
Reasonable accommodation would be to let the trademark
holder take over (at market price) a trademarked keyword
listing if interested. A retroactive right of first refusal
in essence.
Anything else is unrealistic and would run counter to, at
least my understanding of, what is enforceable in a market
economy.
The due diligence process involved in setting up and
maintaining a search engine would become prohibitively
expensive if trademarks were treated as delicately as
Richard suggests.
Thanks for your time.
Thomas Kase
SVP
US-Style.com Inc., 33 south main street, #7, south norwalk, ct 06854
phone: 203.866.4454 fax: 203.866.4546
email: thomas_at_accessio.com
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Received on Wed Feb 03 1999 - 11:25:14 CST
