And we are back. This time in Texas. American Airlines sued Yahoo for its keyword advertising model which allegedly misleads consumers and misappropriates AA's mark. Eric Goldman has drawn a comparison with the AA-Google lawsuit. He also adds that a vicarious trademark infringement claim in the Yahoo matter erroneously uses the vicarious copyright infringement language from the Google matter! Having settled with Google and Rescuecom still in the pipeline, a clear and favored precedent is yet to be seen. One can only hope that there will be no settlement, but I think we all know what to expect.
Goldman points out correctly that Yahoo's model is favorable to trademark owners and wonders why Yahoo hasn't settled already instead of facing a lawsuit. Well, AA settled with Google. Did Google cease to operate its contentious model where adword triggers are trademarks? Apparently, not until recently. Goldman speculates whether Google used the time between July 2008 until now to produce a more effective tool. Yahoo is holding on. Maybe, just maybe....we get something worthwhile from this lawsuit.
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