Trade mark infringement by use of Adwords cases may be brought before courts of registered member states or place of establishment of advertiser

TRADE MARK LAW – PRIVATE INTERNATIONAL LAW

Actions relating to trade mark infringement by use of Adwords may be brought before courts of Member States in which the trade mark is registered or of the place of establishment of the advertiser.

"In view of all the foregoing considerations, Article 5(3) of Regulation No 44/2001 must be interpreted as meaning that an action relating to infringement of a trade mark registered in a Member State because of the use, by an advertiser, of a keyword identical to that trade mark on a search engine website operating under a country-specific top-level domain of another Member State may be brought before either the courts of the Member State in which the trade mark is registered or the courts of the Member State of the place of establishment of the advertiser."

IPPT20120419, CJEU, Wintersteiger v Products 4U

C-523/10 - ECLI:EU:C:2012:220