A nasty surprise for Google in high court ruling

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Editor's note: Two weeks ago, the Delhi High Court passed an interim order in an important battle that has implications for how many companies bid for ad slots on Google search. The question at hand was whether using a competitor’s trademark in keywords for Google Ads to advertise your own brand is an infringement of trademark law. In the interim order, which was made public earlier this week, the court has unequivocally said yes, it is. The case was filed by Indian travel booking company MakeMyTrip against Amsterdam-based rival Booking.com and others, including Google. Booking, MakeMyTrip said, was bidding for ad slots whenever someone searched for “MakeMyTrip” as a keyword, in an attempt to show an ad for Booking above results for MakeMyTrip. This practice, the court ruled, was a case of Booking and the other defendants using MakeMyTrip’s trademark, goodwill and brand investments to profit themselves. It granted a stay order to MakeMyTrip, prohibiting Booking and others names from using the company’s trademarks as keywords for ad bidding until the court reads its final verdict on 27 July. More importantly, it …