Are vertical restrictions on the use of trademarks in online search advertising always anticompetitive? The European Commission’s Guess decision

(by Elias Deutscher)[1] Can the owner of a well-known brand lawfully prevent its independent retailers from using its trademarks and brands to advertise their products on Google? This question has major implications, in particular, for small- and medium-size retailers who largely benefit from the reduced costs of online search advertising and the new sales channels offered by online distribution. For quite some time, issues surrounding the use of trademarks as keywords in paid online search advertising have stirred considerable controversy amongst trademark and IP lawyers. Recently, this question also came into the focus of competition law enforcers. In the Case AT. 40428 Guess,[2] the European Commission assessed for the first time the legality under European Union (‘EU’) competition law of a vertical agreement whereby a trademark proprietor restricted the ability of its licensed distributors to use or bid for its brand names and trademarks as keywords in Google AdWords.