Rosetta Stone Ltd. v. Google, Inc.

Rosetta Stone Ltd. v. Google, Inc.
Court	United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
Decided	April 9, 2012
Citation(s)	676 F.3d 144 (Case No. 10-2007)
Case history
Prior history	730 F. Supp. 2d 531 (E.D. Va. 2010)
Holding
The Fourth Circuit reversed the district court's grant of Google's motion for summary judgment on direct trademark infringement, contributory trademark infringement, and trademark dilution. The Fourth Circuit upheld the district court's grant of summary judgment on Google's motion for vicarious trademark infringement and upheld the district court's grant of Google's motion to dismiss for unjust enrichment.
Court membership
Judge(s) sitting	William B. Traxler Jr., Barbara Milano Keenan, Clyde H. Hamilton
Case opinions
Majority	Traxler
Keywords
Trademark Cyberlaw Direct Trademark infringement Contributory Trademark infringement Trademark dilution Likelihood of Consumer Confusion

Rosetta Stone v. Google, 676 F.3d 144 (4th Cir. 2012)^[1] was a decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit that challenged the legality of Google's AdWords program. The Court overturned a grant of summary judgment for Google that had held Google AdWords was not a violation of trademark law (see federal Lanham Act,15 U.S.C. § 1114(1)).

Though other cases had addressed trademark infringement in the context of online keyword advertising (see Playboy Enterprises, Inc. v. Netscape Communications Corp., Google, Inc. v. American Blind & Wallpaper Factory, Inc.) Rosetta Stone v. Google is considered the last serious American challenge to Google's AdWords program.^[2] Although Rosetta Stone 'won' an overturn of summary judgment, the subsequent settlement between the two parties led commentators to declare that Google had won the keyword advertising trademark fight.^[2]