Contextual Advertising on the Internet: The Evolving Trademark Challenge

Description

In recent years, online contextual advertising has become a powerful, cost-effective marketing tool for companies. Contextual advertising—ads targeting Internet users based on the users’ online behavior—is a multibillion-dollar business for adware companies and Internet search engines.

The surge in online contextual advertising has raised questions of whether contextual ads violate competitors’ trademarks. Litigation arising from contextual advertising yields inconsistent results, as the determination of trademark infringement tends to be fact-specific.

On April 3, 2009, the Second Circuit issued an instructive ruling in Rescuecom Corp. v. Google Inc. The ruling highlighted potential liabilities due to a companies’ use of competitor trademarks in contextual advertising and the increasing likelihood of future infringement lawsuits.

Listen as our panel of intellectual property attorneys examines how the courts are addressing online contextual advertising. The panel will outline best practices for companies to leverage the business benefits of contextual advertising while avoiding liability for trademark infringement.

Outline

1. Online contextual advertising — overview
   1. Metatags
   2. Pop-up advertising
   3. Keyword advertising
   4. Click-through advertising
2. Court treatment of contextual advertising
   1. Rescuecom Corp. v. Google Inc. (2d Cir. 2009) and other recent “use in commerce” cases
   2. Likelihood of confusion/initial interest confusion
3. Best practices for avoiding liability for infringement

Benefits

The panel will review these and other key questions:

• How are the courts responding to trademark infringement cases arising from the increase in contextual advertising on the Internet?
• What lessons on "use in commerce" can IP counsel glean from the recent Rescuecom Corp. v. Google Inc. ruling?
• How will courts likely deal with the "likelihood of confusion" issues surrounding contextual advertising on the Internet?

CLE Credit

Strafford's live seminars qualify for CLE in every state that accredits webinars. They offer you a high quality, cost effective, and convenient CLE option, with no lost travel time or expenses.

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