By Aditya Kalra
NEW DELHI, July 9 (Reuters) – Google has challenged an Indian court ruling that it infringed on a company’s trademark rights by allowing rivals to use its name as an advertising keyword, arguing the decision will hurt consumers, documents reviewed by Reuters show.
The May decision could reshape the online ads market in a country where Google last year earned $4.1 billion in gross advertising revenue but where it is also facing a raft of antitrust cases and court battles.
To ensure their ads are promoted by Google and target the right customers, companies bid on keywords that online consumers type into the search engine.
Indian bathroom fittings maker Hindware, however, accused its rivals of purchasing keywords related to its brand on the Google ads platform, so that their websites appear at the top of searches when consumers typed in “Hindware”.
The Delhi High Court ruled against Google in the case, ordering it to pay damages of $31,600 and other litigation costs.
In its 4,761-page challenge, which is not public but was reviewed by Reuters, Google said the decision makes India the “sole outlier” among global jurisdictions “with serious consequences for the digital advertising industry, online consumer choice, and competitive markets.”
Researchers have observed that consumers may search for a brand in order to identify and assess alternatives, Google wrote in the July 7 filing, arguing the ruling will effectively grant trademark owners a “monopoly over advertising space to the detriment of consumers.”
In a response to a Reuters request for comment, Google confirmed it is appealing the order, which it said “diverges from established legal precedents in India”. It added that its ads policies reflect standard practices that enable competition.
Google India’s appeal will be heard in the coming days.
GOOGLE SELLING SOMETHING IT DOESN’T OWN, JUDGE SAYS
If upheld, Indian lawyers and tech experts say the original ruling will have wide-ranging ramifications for how the online ads market operates.
Indian matchmaking service Shaadi.com, for example, said that it would change the economics of online ads for millions of businesses that were suffering when their competitors bid on their name and Google took a fee.
Justice Mini Pushkarna noted in the decision in May that Google could not be permitted to shrug off responsibility after making a tool available that leads to trademark infringement.
“Google has attempted to sell something that it simply does not own,” Pushkarna wrote.
Google’s appeal rejects the position that it has infringed on trademarks, arguing that “a keyword is merely used as an internal and backend trigger to display an ad” and is simply “making advertising space available”.
Google also faces antitrust cases in India as well as legal challenges over AI training and stricter-than-ever content takedown regulations that began applying to tech companies from February.
(Reporting by Aditya Kalra; Editing by Joe Bavier)
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