Search Engine: When was the dispute?

Intermediary transaction SEO diagnosis Taobao guest Cloud host technology Hall

U.S. Anglo Extrudes Andwallpaperfactory Company will Google v. Court, the main reason is Google keyword advertising business infringement of its trademark. This is not the first time Google has encountered such a legal dispute, last year 1 in 0月, a French company for a similar reason to sue Google,google in the case without prior examination, the plaintiff's trademark directly linked to the plaintiff's competitor's website constitutes infringement of the plaintiff's trademark, Finally, the court fined Google and ordered it to stop the business for a period of time.

Trademark infringement, constant nightmare

Network search engine is the most important information exchange tool in the Internet, but its existence can not infringe the lawful rights and interests of others, although it legal lawsuit not only fights for the law, but also is the commercial benefit, but it can not be caught by others without touching the law. The actual situation is that the infringement phenomenon always exists, especially the trademark infringement.

There are two main cases of infringement of trademarks in Internet search business. Firstly, the trademark is scanned without the permission of the trademark holder. Each search engine has a "Web page snapshot" tool, which constantly scan the Web page, saved in the web Search service server, this is not a temporary replication, but a long-term replication behavior, even if the other server to delete relevant content, through the "snapshot of the Web" can still be photographed, Unless the web search service removes it from the server, it obviously constitutes a trademark infringement. But generally speaking, this does not cause the damage to the trademark holder, is advantageous to its trademark propaganda, therefore generally also does not have the legal dispute. Second, advertisers (often competitors of trademark holders) violate trademark rights in keyword ads. The Advertiser takes the competitor's trademark as the key word, when the user through the brand name as a keyword search, the search results and the advertiser's product or website link, which is the trademark of the trademark infringement, but also constitute unfair competition, the key is the network search service providers in which the legal responsibility. In several cases, Internet search providers have been pushed to the dock, in the French trademark infringement case, the Internet search business Google was awarded a lawsuit, the impact of this decision is far-reaching, and once the decision in other countries in the legal system to be recognized, the impact on the keyword advertising business will be difficult to measure, Web Search service providers will have to assume the obligation to censor search items before allowing advertisers to use them, or, in case of trademark infringement, Internet search providers often become or become defendants. and the network search business is very large, a review is not realistic, but not the obligation to review, network search service providers are facing greater legal risk. This issue is likely to be a very difficult problem in search engine development, but also the biggest legal obstacle to face. At present, only in the scope of the ability to permit the advance review, in the form of contracts or other cooperation agreements to set up exemption clauses, to give advertisers a certain degree of legal liability.

Database, special rights protection

The US Anglo Extrudes Andwallpaperfactory Company claims that the reason for suing Google is not limited to infringement of trademark rights, but also that Google infringes its trademark by returning its rival's list of non-sponsored internet searches. This undoubtedly means that Google's search technology has been comprehensively challenged, regardless of whether the infringement, the search list and the legal issues, the protection of the search list is also very deficient, which also hides many potential disputes.

Talking about a search list is essentially a database. Search engines generally have two forms: Keyword search and classification search, such as Sohu, Sina and other portals, in addition to keyword search, there are classified search, classification search has been carried out manually, there are software, but for the collection of information need to pay a lot of human or financial resources. Although it itself is just a collection of data in a certain order, because the originality does not belong to the work and is not protected by the copyright law, but according to the "hard collection" principle established by the EU Database Protection directive, the database should be protected by special rights, and this is also the development trend of the database protection mechanism in the world at present. At present, the classification of search and other areas of tort is very common, mainly because of the classification search or search list to pay a considerable amount of manpower, financial resources, many sites on the hitchhiking, and database infringement is not easy to determine, so this area of infringement will be more and more, and the current protection of the database is still very weak, At least in China has not established special rights protection mechanism, so in order to reduce the search engine field disputes, standardize the search market, it is necessary to establish a special right to protect the database legal mechanism.

Domestic Search service Provider: The situation is grim

China's internet sector, "eyeball economy" after the "thumb economy", "thumb economy" ushered in the "search economy." Competition in China's search market has been in the incandescent state since last year, with Baidu, HC, Yahoo China and other multifaceted. The legal battles that are staged abroad will sooner or later be repeated at home, as in the copyright field, RIAA wave the intellectual property on the other side of the ocean, the ocean also took place on the mobile phone ringtone copyright war, Peer-to-peer and music copyright-related disputes is not far, China's record industry will also and Peer-to-peer showdown. Search engine itself exists many legal risks are doomed in the fierce market competition will also be faced with legal disputes, in particular, the search engine involved in trademark infringement, Web page replication, privacy disclosure, embedded chain infringement issues will continue to highlight, occurs in advertisers and network search service providers, There will also be more and more legal disputes between users and web search service providers and websites and web search service providers, and the Internet search service providers will have to take up more information filtering and censorship obligations, and the Government would also strengthen the management and control of this field. Therefore, the legal situation facing the network search service providers in the domestic market is very grim, and what happens in other countries today is likely to recur in China tomorrow. Nevermore, is. China's network Search service providers, have entered or will enter the Chinese market, foreign network search service providers, each face is not just Shiri competitors, more or less clear or dark legal abyss, so it is necessary to prepare adequately.