American Blind & Wallpaper Factory has had a suit pending against Google (GOOG) since 2003. It accuses the search engine of allowing companies to put competing advertising next to listing of firms whose names show up in search results. Smart marketers look for places where their rivals will be listed in Google search results and use the company’s AdWord program to target those pages with ad messages. American Blinds contended that this was trademark infringement.
But, the suit went away, and Google paid nothing to settle it. According to Reuters, "American Blinds stipulated that Google was paying nothing and making no change in policy in order for American Blind to settle the case."
Why did the company back out. One good guess would be that it ran out of money for its legals case and was facing Google’s almost unlimited resources to defend the action. Another is that American Blinds saw that courts has sided with Google in other, similar cases.
No matter the reason. Google wins.
Douglas A. McIntyre
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