Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Intellectual Property Law Blogs -> IPKat

Intellectual Property Law

: IPKat

Will Dorothy Perkins go to war?

By Johanna Gibson, David Pearce, Jeremy Phillips and Ilanah Simon.

The Lawyer reported yesterday that legal chiefs at some of the UK's leading brand-owning businesses convened a crisis meeting last week to look at the legality?of?Google's revamped keywords policy which, they believe, infringes their trade marks. Those involved are said to include the Arcadia Group (Topshop and Dorothy Perkins), Lastminute.com, Saga and the Association of British Travel Agents. Google?is reported as saying that it?had conducted a full legal and business review in the UK and Ireland before implementing the policy and that it was confident of its legal position.

The IPKat doubts that this matter will ever go to court. The magnitude of the issues at stake, the length of time it will take to resolve given the likelihood of appeals, the risk of one or more references for preliminary rulings by the European Court of Justice and the dependence of the brand-owning protagonists on Google for the promotion of their own goods and services all militate in favour of a settlement. Merpel says, what about the prospect of Europe-only legislation? Might that not encourage Google to go for a settlement too? [The Kat thanks his friend Lawrence Ryz for the link].

Dorothy Perkins here
Polly Perkins here
Purrkins here

Full post as published by IPKat on June 03, 2008 (boomark / email).