Personal injury law firm beats Lerner & Rowe's appeal in Google ad case
By Diana Novak Jones
Oct 22 (Reuters) -A federal appeals court on Tuesday sided with an Arizona personal injury law firm sued by rival Lerner & Rowe, which had claimed trademark infringement involving the purchase of Google ads.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s ruling that granted a bid by the Arizona firm, the Accident Law Group, for summary judgment in the trademark infringement lawsuit brought by Lerner & Rowe over ALG’s ads that appeared on Lerner & Rowe’s Google search results. Lerner & Rowe had accused ALG of attaching ads for its firm to search terms or "keywords" associated with Lerner & Rowe and siphoning off potential clients.
The appeals court said that despite Lerner & Rowe's "strong" trademark and its expenditure of more than $100 million on marketing in Arizona, data from Google and ALG showed that only a tiny fraction of people who called ALG about potential legal representation mentioned Lerner & Rowe and therefore may have been confused.
ALG, also known as Brown, Engstrand & Shely, has purchased Google Ad keywords on Lerner & Rowe’s Google search results since the firm’s founding in 2015, according to the opinion.
Lerner & Rowe, which has offices all over Arizona and in several other states around the country, sued ALG in Arizona federal court in 2021, alleging federal and state trademark infringement and unjust enrichment.
In 2023, U.S. District Judge David Campbell granted ALG’s bid for summary judgment, in part relying on data from ALG’s intake department, which said it received a little more than 200 phone calls from people who specifically mentioned “Lerner & Rowe.” In contrast, ALG’s ads appeared on “Lerner & Rowe” searches more than 109,000 times between 2017 and 2021, Campbell said.
The appeals court on Tuesday said that the district court was correct to conclude that the case was "one of the rare trademark infringement cases susceptible to summary judgment.
Maria Speth of Jaburg Wilk, one of the attorneys defending ALG, said in a statement that the appellate court “correctly vindicated Accident Law Group’s right to engage in key word advertising.”
Attorneys for Lerner & Rowe did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
U.S. Circuit Judge Roopali Desai concurred with the appeals court's unanimous decision but wrote a separate opinion urging the full 9th Circuit to consider whether bidding and purchasing on ad keywords constitute "use in commerce" under federal law, a necessary element to prove trademark confusion.
Reporting by Diana Jones
免责声明: XM Group仅提供在线交易平台的执行服务和访问权限，并允许个人查看和/或使用网站或网站所提供的内容，但无意进行任何更改或扩展，也不会更改或扩展其服务和访问权限。所有访问和使用权限，将受下列条款与条例约束：(i) 条款与条例；(ii) 风险提示；以及(iii) 完整免责声明。请注意，网站所提供的所有讯息，仅限一般资讯用途。此外，XM所有在线交易平台的内容并不构成，也不能被用于任何未经授权的金融市场交易邀约和/或邀请。金融市场交易对于您的投资资本含有重大风险。
所有在线交易平台所发布的资料，仅适用于教育/资讯类用途，不包含也不应被视为用于金融、投资税或交易相关咨询和建议，或是交易价格纪录，或是任何金融商品或非应邀途径的金融相关优惠的交易邀约或邀请。
本网站上由XM和第三方供应商所提供的所有内容，包括意见、新闻、研究、分析、价格、其他资讯和第三方网站链接，皆保持不变，并作为一般市场评论所提供，而非投资性建议。所有在线交易平台所发布的资料，仅适用于教育/资讯类用途，不包含也不应被视为适用于金融、投资税或交易相关咨询和建议，或是交易价格纪录，或是任何金融商品或非应邀途径的金融相关优惠的交易邀约或邀请。请确保您已阅读并完全理解，XM非独立投资研究提示和风险提示相关资讯，更多详情请点击 这里。
