Playboy alleged in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in the Central District of California that Excite and Netscape Communications violated its trademarks by presenting other companies' banner ads when surfers sought out the magazine's Web site.
Advertisers buy into the keyword program to reach users seeking content related to their offerings.
But Playboy said the program diluted its trademark. However, U.S. District Judge Alicemarie Stotler disagreed with the publisher. An attorney for Playboy said today that the firm plans to appeal the ruling. The decision is significant because it gives search engines, Net advertisers, and Web site developers clearer rules for using other entities' registered trademarks to bolster traffic to their sites or customers. But Playboy lost another case it filed against a former Playmate to prevent her from embedding the company's trademarks in the code of her Web site.