Jury Maintains Legality of Pay-Per-Click Bids on Trademarks

There was an interesting story posted by PRweb in regards to the legality of PPC Bids on Trademarked names.  Here is a snipit:

In Civil Action case No. A-07-Ca-615-LY of The College Network Inc. v. Moore Educational Publishing Inc., jurors rejected the argument that pay-per-click bidding on registered trademarks constitutes infringement. The College Network alleged that the defendant, doing business as iStudySmart.com, was infringing upon their registered trademark by placing pay-per-click bids on the words “college” and “network”.

Arguing before the United States District Court, Western District in Austin, The College Network sought $150,000 in lost profits, claiming the defendant’s pay-per-click advertising practices gave them an undue advantage and lured away customers.

“Bidding on a competitor’s registered trademark has become common practice in the search engine marketing (SEM) industry,” said Troy Perkins, founder of Totus Internet Visibility Agency, San Antonio TX. Providing testimony as an objective, expert witness, Perkins gave an online demonstration to show the jury how keyword bidding enables companies to gain first page ranking with companies of like products.

This keeps bidding on competitor company names fair game.  This is usually a great way to get inexpensive targeted clicks.