Sponsored Links Ruling in Yahoo!'s Favor

Yahoo! UK and Overture, its sister company, were sued by Victor Wilson, the owner of a London catering business, for displaying advertising for some other companies when words that he had registered as trade marks for his company were introduced in the search box. 'Mr Spicy' was what the whole fuss was all about, and the ads for the Sainsbury Supermarket and price comparison site PriceGrabber.co.uk were displayed because both of them sponsored the word 'spicy'.

Wilson's case was built on the belief that the two had sponsored in turn his trademark combination of words, and that's why the High Court dismissed the case as being "totally without merit," when Yahoo proved that to be wrong. According to out-law.com, Yahoo! explained the appearing of the adverts by detailing on the word-matching technology.

"The trade mark in this case is not used by anyone other than the browser who enters the phrase 'Mr Spicy' as a search query in the defendants' search engine. In particular, the trade mark is not used by the defendants. The response of the defendants to the use of the trade mark by the browser is not use of the trade mark by the defendants," judge Morgan wrote when he accepted Yahoo!'s arguments that no trade mark use had been lead to by its search engine.

He referred to a ruling of 2003 that brought much light onto the matter of trade mark use, when Arsenal FC sued a street vendor selling unofficial Arsenal branded merchandise, that fit the present case "very comfortably and clearly." "Mr Wilson is not able to prohibit the use of the words 'Mr Spicy' even when they are being applied to goods identical to those for which the mark is registered if that use cannot affect his own interest as proprietor of the mark having regard to its functions," the judge was quoted by out-law.com.