The long running trial of a lawsuit filed by the American Blind & Wallpaper Factory, Inc. against Google finally came to an end with both parties agreeing not to pay any compensatory damages to each other. The American Blind & Wallpaper Factory charged Google and its Adwords program for abuse of trademarks.
The lawsuit claims that Google’s Adwords and its policy of selling ads space that will be displayed on search results is a clear violation of the trademark law. These ads space gets displayed when a consumer search for information related to the business of the American Blind and Wallpaper Factory, and displays ads by its rival companies.
Upon signing the agreement, both parties did not admit to committing liability or wrongdoing and agreed to pay for their own legal costs. The American Blind and Wallpaper Factory however want Google to refrain from changing its Adwords trademark policy that will affect them.
With the signing of the agreement, Google immediately declared victory.
“From the start, we’ve said that American Blind and Wallpaper Factory’s claims were baseless, and that Google’s trademark policies are perfectly reasonable and lawful”, said Michael Kwun, Google’s managing counsel for litigation in a report by Reuters.
