Source: http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2011/01/wintersteiger-3-legal-grounds.html
Timestamp: 2016-10-01 00:00:47
Document Index: 471546571

Matched Legal Cases: ['Art. 31', '§ 387', 'Art. 2', 'Art. 5', 'Art. 31', 'Art. 31']

The starting point for the answer of this question for the Court is the principle of territoriality of trade mark law: The mark is protected only in that territory, in which it is registered; it can only be infringed in this particular territory. For this reason, with national marks it depends on which conditions of locality ("raeumliche Voraussetzungen") an infringement of a trade mark takes place in the country in which the mark was registered. There may be different views for the issue of an AdWord ad on a "national “ Google website: (i) It is conceivable that an AdWord ad can only infringe a national trade mark if the Top-level domain of the search engine is the one of the respective country where the mark is registered or (if necessary) the search engine has a generic character (e.g. .com or .org). An argument for this is the country-specific character of the different Google websites: it could be accepted that the advertiser by publishing the ad on a certain country-specific top-level domain makes clear that his ad objectively is not targeted at other countries and that there can consequently be no infringement of trade marks registered in other countries.
(ii) However, the mere possibility to access the website in the country where the trade mark is registered might be sufficient. Reason for this is the global character of the internet: Whoever uses this medium must take into account the fact that its ads are read by a world-wide audience and may therefore infringe the origin function of a trade mark registered in one or more countries. This however would have the consequence that advertisers would have to conduct a world-wide search of trade marks prior to publishing an ad, in order to avoid trade mark infringement. Further, the Court is not aware whether it is technically possible for search engine providers to prevent an ad from being shown in a particular country. If not, a prohibition to publish an ad in one country would in fact have world-wide effect. (iii) A third solution - which is preferable in the opinion the Court - is to not only require the accessibility of the website but also a further connection between the ad and the country in which the trade mark is registered. One particular point to consider could be the language of the website, and whether the parties are in competition with each other on the market of the country in which the trade mark is registered. In the present case, this would indicate an infringement of the Austrian trade mark and thus jurisdiction of the Austrian courts. A further criterion would, if necessary, be the number of clicks on the relevant Google website. However, the Court does not know whether Google publishes these numbers. It would further be conceivable to consider whether it is proportionate in a particular case to prohibit use of an AdWord, which is protected as a trade mark in one country, on a world-wide basis.
Similar questions were put to the ECJ with regard to the infringement of personality rights in Cases C-509/09 (Federal Supreme Court/BGH) and C-161/10 (Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris). With the current questions, the Court seeks clarification in a trade mark connection. Regarding jurisdiction in interim injunction proceedings, Art. 31 Brussels I refers to the national law. In this case, the first instance court would have jurisdiction, because the proceedings are still pending before that court (§ 387 (1) EO). However, in Case C-391/95 van Uden the ECJ noted that a "real connecting link" had to exist "between the subject-matter of the measures sought and the territorial jurisdiction of the Contracting State of the court before which those measures are sought". In the opinion the Court, such a "real connecting link" in cases where a party is requested to refrain from doing something can only exist if either the defendant is based in Austria or if the infringing behaviour has occurred in Austria or could lead to the infringement of rights in Austria. However, in these cases, the Austrian court would have jurisdiction according to Art. 2 or Art. 5 No 3 Brussels I, so that Art. 31 Brussels I referring to national law does not have any independent meaning. A question relating to Art. 31 Brussels I therefore is not necessary.
2. If Question1.3 is answered in the affirmative: Which criteria are to be used to determine whether jurisdiction under Article 5(3) of Brussels I is established where a trade mark granted in the State of the course seized is used as an AdWord on a search engine website with a country-specific top-level domain different from that of the State of the court seized?"Article 5 of Brussels I reads as follows:
4. as regards a civil claim for damages or restitution which is based on an act giving rise to criminal proceedings, in the court seised of those proceedings, to the extent that that court has jurisdiction under its own law to entertain civil proceedings; ...The IPKat wondered whether, since the UK's Intellectual Property Office could spare only a week for stakeholder comments on questions which take more or less two years to resolve, it would be good to see how other countries handle the consultation issue. He has since received information from a reader in the Netherlands which suggests that (i) there is no single standard practice; (ii) questions for the Court of Justice are distributed between the departments involved and they seem to decide on their own right which questions the Netherlands should intervene in.
Here is a french judgement in a case very similar to that in Wintersteiger (C-523/10):“Axa vs. Google” (Cour cass 23 november 2010). Axa accused Google of trade mark infringement and passing off because AdWords provides users the possibility of selecting keywords which correspond to Axa, so that sponsored links are displayed when a user introduces those keywords in the search engine. The Cour d’Appel had dismissed the claim because French court did not have jurisdiction. Axa appealed. In their opinion French courts had jurisdiction. Following the existing Cour de cass doctrine in “Cristal" and "HSM”, they argued that the jurisdiction of the court should be sustained on the fact that the web site was accessible from France. The fact that the web site was of a passive nature and was in a foreign language was irrelevant. The accessibility of the web site from France caused damages which were neither virtual nor eventual. In their opinion the court was wrong in deciding that, although google.de, google.co.uk and google.ca were targeted towards the public in Germany, UK and Canada. The fact that they were accessible from France was insufficient to justify the jurisdiction of French courts and it could not be implied that the litigious web sites had an economic impact on the French market. The Cour de cassation upheld part of the judgement of the Cour d’Appel. The latter had sufficiently proved that the sponsored links were not targeted to the public in France. They were only displayed in Google web sites that were targeted to the public in Germany (google.de), the UK (google.co.uk) and Canada (google.ca) and that were written in German and English. However, the Cour de cassation revoked the part of the judgement concerning “google.fr”: in this case, French courts could declare jurisdiction because that web site is targeted to French public. In any case, that was useless for the plaintiffs since the infringing sponsored links were not displayed in this web site. The ECJ will hear two joint cases very related to this one: C-161/10 and 509/09