Louis Vuitton and Google resume handbag swinging

by Stevie Smith - Mar 19 2009, 16:15

Louis Vuitton and Google Inc. are heading for more legal shenanigans in the courts after the designer and luxury goods maker filed a complaint against the online search giant for helping to illegally promote fake brand manufacturers using the Vuitton brand for their own gain.

A French court action pursued by the Louis Vuitton company initially returned that Google was guilty of permitting such companies to use Vuitton as a key search word for Google advertisements, which often returned sponsored page ads peddling counterfeit and replica goods carrying the Vuitton brand name.

That standing judgement has since been appealed by Google and duly passed on from the French courts to the European Court of Justice, which will now decide whether Google has breached the Trade Mark Directive set out by the European Union.

AP reports that, according to the lawyers representing Paris-based Louis Vuitton, Google’s AdWords service allows advertisers to bid on terms such as “Louis Vuitton fakes”, and that offering such access to a trademarked name is in direct violation of EU rules.

The latest legal clash is unlikely to reach a conclusion until the close of summer, and if it ends favourably for Louis Vuitton then Google may be forced to overhaul its search policy across Europe in order to prevent trademarks from being abused in AdWords.

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