The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Google Germany wins Adwords trademark fight

Paid-for-ads are legal

Free whitepaper – Thermal design of Dell PowerEdge server

Google has won the first stage of its legal battle to defend itself against accusations of trademark infringement. A court in Germany has ruled against Metaspinner Media, which was seeking to stop the search engine from selling adverts relating to its trademarks.

Metaspinner Media started court action against Google Deutschland in May. Metaspinner accused Google of selling ads triggered by searches for its online price comparison software "Preispiraten" or price pirate. Google has already faced similar legal action in France and the US.

Petra Bosback, Metaspinner Media's lawyer, told AP her client had lost the case but refused further comment. She said it would take weeks to analyse the decision. ®

Related stories

Google goes GOOG at $85 a share
Google Germany faces Adwords trademark fight
Google! Licenses! Yahoo's! Secret! Sauce!

Free whitepaper – Migrating to the new Dell Management Console

Don’t Miss

DustbinDirty, dirty PCs: The X-rated picture guide

Ventblockers Horror beyond human imagination

SC09Top 500 supers - rise of the Linux quad-cores

SC09 Jaguar munches Roadrunner

Ubuntu teaser Early adopters bloodied by Ubuntu's Karmic Koala

Smooth Windows upgrade it ain't

Sign up, sign up for The Register IT security newsletter

Narrowcasting for the email classes