tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5574479.post2754225895844676427..comments2024-03-29T06:53:23.405+00:00Comments on The IPKat: Wintersteiger 3: the legal groundsVerónica Rodríguez Arguijohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05763207846940036921noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5574479.post-91452021816244973492011-02-03T20:25:47.865+00:002011-02-03T20:25:47.865+00:00Here is a french judgement in a case very similar ...Here is a french judgement in a case very similar to that in Wintersteiger (C-523/10):<br />“Axa vs. Google” (Cour cass 23 november 2010). Axa accused Google of trade mark infringement and passing off because AdWords provides users the possibility of selecting keywords which correspond to Axa, so that sponsored links are displayed when a user introduces those keywords in the search engine. The Cour d’Appel had dismissed the claim because French court did not have jurisdiction. Axa appealed. In their opinion French courts had jurisdiction. Following the existing Cour de cass doctrine in “Cristal" and "HSM”, they argued that the jurisdiction of the court should be sustained on the fact that the web site was accessible from France. The fact that the web site was of a passive nature and was in a foreign language was irrelevant. The accessibility of the web site from France caused damages which were neither virtual nor eventual. In their opinion the court was wrong in deciding that, although google.de, google.co.uk and google.ca were targeted towards the public in Germany, UK and Canada. The fact that they were accessible from France was insufficient to justify the jurisdiction of French courts and it could not be implied that the litigious web sites had an economic impact on the French market. <br />The Cour de cassation upheld part of the judgement of the Cour d’Appel. The latter had sufficiently proved that the sponsored links were not targeted to the public in France. They were only displayed in Google web sites that were targeted to the public in Germany (google.de), the UK (google.co.uk) and Canada (google.ca) and that were written in German and English. However, the Cour de cassation revoked the part of the judgement concerning “google.fr”: in this case, French courts could declare jurisdiction because that web site is targeted to French public. In any case, that was useless for the plaintiffs since the infringing sponsored links were not displayed in this web site. <br />The ECJ will hear two joint cases very related to this one: C-161/10 and 509/09Aurelio Lopez-Tarruella Martinezhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13320127391637928352noreply@blogger.com