World of Ad words

The world of Google is a vast and it is very difficult to stay protected in the Ad words of Google. But somehow the domain name owners struggle to survive in this world by claiming their own rights as and when they find some discrepancies. Previously there have been lots of instances wherein the Google had been accused of earning revenues through Ad worlds through third parties.

The same thing has happened again, now, with Adverts. In 1992 Argos Systems Inc (ASI), an American company specializing in CAD systems for the design and construction of buildings registered the domain argos.com. In 1996, Argos Limited, a well- known UK retailer registered argos.co.uk.  Argos owned various EU and UK trade marks for ARGOS but could not obtain the domain name party for .com.

From December 2008 to 2012, ASI’S website included various Ad sense ads to all the visitors. Later on in the year 2014 the website was configured to enable only visitors from outside America to visit the site. But the majority of the visitors came from UK and Ireland who immediately left the site and this triggered ARGOS that the Google ads were left open for visitors outside America to earn revenues from Argo’s name. Thus, Argo alleged trade mark infringement and free riding on the reputation.

The issue arises whether adverts displayed on a website constitute trade mark infringement.

Argos argued that by combining the domain name argos.com and the Google ads (some of which included ads for Argos or Argos’ competitors) amount to trade mark infringement.  But this contention failed as Argos has given its consent to such use while signing the Google’s terms and conditions. Further, the ads did not target the UK consumers as the prices were in dollars.

The Court found that Argos had expressly and unequivocally consented to ASI’s use of ARGOS in its domain plus adverts for Argos’ goods and services. Hence, any claim on the adverts showing Argos in the website of argos.com failed miserably.