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Sponsored listing trademark action survives motion to dismiss

By Evan Brown

T.D.I. Intern., Inc. v. Golf Preservations, Inc., (Slip Op.) 2008 WL 294531 (E.D.Ky. January 31, 2008)

Plaintiffs T.D.I. International and XGD Systems sued their former employee Samson Bailey and his company Golf Preservations for, among other things, violation of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. §1051 et seq. Plaintiffs alleged that defendants’ purchase of plaintiffs’ trademarks to trigger competitive advertising on Google and Yahoo was trademark infringement and unfair competition.

Defendants moved pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) to dismiss the complaint, but the court denied the motion. It found that under the Twombly standard, plaintiffs had alleged facts sufficient to state a claim to relief that was plausible on its face.

Predictably, defendants had argued that the purchase of plaintiffs’ marks as keywords did not constitute a “use” of the marks as provided in the Lanham Act at 15 U.S.C. § 1127. They relied heavily on Interactive Products Corp. v. a2z Mobile Office Solutions, Inc., 326 F.3d 687, 695 (6th Cir.2003) (a case involving the appearance of a mark in the post-domain path of a URL), and 1-800 Contacts, Inc. v. When U.com, Inc., 414 F.3d 400 (2d Cir.2005) (involving pop-up advertisements triggered by page content and user activities).

Plaintiffs relied on a number of cases to argue that the purchase of keywords was a use as defined in the Lanham Act, and also (correctly) asserted that the scenario of buying keywords to trigger advertising is notably different from use in a post-domain URL (as in Interactive Products) and unseen triggering of pop-up advertisements (as in 1-800 Contacts). Given the split of authority and the corresponding “uncertain state of the law on the specific issue presented in [the] case,” the Court sided with plaintiffs and found that defendants’ arguments were not sufficient to warrant dismissal.

Full post as published by InternetCases.com on February 02, 2008 (boomark / email).