Any trademark lawyer knows that one of the high profile issues in the US relates to whether one can use a competitor's trademark as a keyword to present advertising. There used to be a split in the Courts as to whether this is, or is not, trademark infringement. No longer. Unanimity has been reached, at least for now, among the Federal Circuit Courts, and while the public interest groups criticize the courts, any trademark lawyer exercising even the slightest bit of balanced perspective cannot avoid the obvious state of the law.
And every trademark lawyer can now tell a client in confidence that you cannot purchase the trademark name (registered or unregistered) of a competitor in order to present advertising. Google is findng out that this huge revenue stream is at risk because it is now being successfully sued for contributory trademark infringement. It now seems like the time is right for businesses to begin taking competitors' ads out of action. As a trademark lawyer focused exclusively on the law of the Internet, it will be interesting to see how things develop now that there is no credible argument remaining that the courts support this practice.
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