Yahoo settles trade mark infringement case

10 January 2010

By Ben Evans

The trade mark infringement case between search engine Yahoo and American Airlines has been settled.

American Airlines had issued a claim against Yahoo over the use of its trade marks to trigger search ads i.e. using it as a keyword for search engines. At the heart of the litigation was the question of "whether search engines infringe on trademark by allowing one company to use another's name as a keyword to trigger pay-per-click ads."

This question is one that has not been resolved either in the UK / Europe or across the pond in the US. Various cases are due to be heard by the ECJ which will provide us with a precedent for this kind of issue. It is rather unfortunate that this case (and a similar case between American Airlines and Google) has been settled as it still does not give us an insight into how the courts will view such a dispute.

Ben Evans is an trainee solicitor specialising in intellectual property and information technology law.