Top legal adviser sides with Google in copyright case

Advocate General has come down on Google's side

Google has claimed a victory in the ongoing case over its AdWords advertising service in the EU.

A preliminary opinion from the European Court of Justice has ruled in favour of the search giant, declaring that Google is not violating copyrights when it sells advertising space alongside search results.

The case, which was brought by major consumer brands such as Louis Vuitton, argues that the AdWords programme allows counterfeiters to purchase keywords for legitimate brands and then display the phoney links alongside search results.

In doing so, the plaintiffs argue that Google is enabling individuals to violate copyrights.

The latest opinion, from EU Advocate General Poiares Maduro, rejected the claim and suggested that punishing Google for its sale of AdWords space could set a dangerous precedent for restricting ad sales.

"It must be remembered that the advertisers’ selection in AdWords of keywords which correspond to trade marks can take place for many legitimate purposes (purely descriptive uses, comparative advertising, product reviews, and so on)" wrote Maduro.

"The consequence of considering that such selection constitutes, in itself, a trade mark infringement would be to preclude all those legitimate uses."

But the opinion did not suggest that companies should be left completely powerless. Rather than pursue Google for providing the service, Maduro suggested that companies target the actual counterfeit sites.

The opinion avoided wading too far into other counterfeit matters, instead noting that the case was specifically about Google AdWords and not the internet as a whole.

"Although the court has not been asked about the use of the trade mark in the ads, it should be stated that trade mark proprietors can prevent such use if it involves a risk of confusion," it said.

"However, it is not the use in ads, or on the sites advertised, that is the subject of the present cases."