The decision in the Louis Vuitton vs Google case is expected to be rendered on the 23rd of March 2010.

The French Courts had raised to the Court of Justice three question which could be summarized as such:

- Is the reservation by an economic actor of a keyword imitating or reproducing a trademark to offer links which point out to a website offering similar or identical products or services a violation of the exclusive rights protected by article 5 of the EC 89/104 regulation?

- Is article 5 of the EC directive should be interpreted in such a manner that a search engine is making a wrong use of a trademark when it offers to reference keywords reproducing or imitating a trademark and when it organizes the creation and the publication of commercial links pointing at websites which offer similar or identical services or products to the ones protected by the trademark?

- If this use cannot be forbidden by the trademark owner, is the search engine considered as an intermediary service provider whose storing data given by the recipient of a service and who could only be liable after having been informed of the illegal use of a trademark?

The parties have exchanged their pleadings and in September 2009, the Advocate General Poiares MADURO gave his opinion.

The Advocate General considered that Google didn't infringe the trade mark rights by allowing advertisers to buy keywords on the Adwords systems. Neither the use of trademarks as keywords nor the existence of links related to certain keywords could be considered as a trade mark infringement.

The Google Adwords system wouldn't therefore be counterfeiting for the Advocate General but only could engage Google's liability on a more general level by selling keywords which corresponds to trade marks to third parties.

Article written by Olivier VIBERT