Rosetta Stone Appeals Loss to Google in Trademark Case Over Web Searches
Rosetta Stone Inc. appealed a judge’s ruling that Google Inc. didn’t infringe its trademarks by selling the language-software maker’s marks to rivals for use as search keywords.
Rosetta Stone asked the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia to review the summary judgment ruling by U.S. District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee, according to a filing yesterday.
Advertisers on Google, operator of the world’s biggest Internet search engine, can buy keywords that generate links to their sites when users enter particular search terms. Rosetta Stone, based in Arlington, Virginia, claimed that people looking for language products on Google were being directed to its rivals and to software counterfeiters.
Lee ruled in favor of Mountain View, California-based Google. He said last month that no “reasonable trier of fact” could find that selling keywords containing Rosetta Stone trademarks to third-party advertisers created a likelihood of confusion “as to the source or origin of Rosetta Stone’s goods.”
“The district court’s opinion contains important errors on basic trademark principles, with far-reaching implications, and it erroneously resolves disputed factual issues at the summary judgment stage,” the company said in a statement e-mailed by spokesman Reilly Brennan.
Google had no comment, spokesman Aaron Zamost said.
Rosetta Stone rose 22 cents, or 1.3 percent, to $17.28 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading at 4:03 p.m. Google gained $10.32, or 2.3 percent, to $460.34 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
The case is Rosetta Stone v. Google Inc., 09-00736, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Virginia (Alexandria).
To contact the reporter on this story: Don Jeffrey in New York at djeffrey1@bloomberg.net.
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