The litigation that Mark Nutritionals filed against four search engines last week is the subject of an article by Danny Sullivan in the latest Search Engine Report. It's excellent, in-depth analysis of some of the issues involved in the suits.
Can failure to include the Mark Nutritional site in the top results for their trademarked product be considered trademark infringement? Is the fact that the advertisement based sites have the appearance of relevance based search engines important? Does Altavista fit with the other three named defendants? Is the old "bait and switch" tactic taking place? What is Google's opinion of the suit?
Interesting questions. Good answers. The Search Engine Report also links to the actual complaints filed.
- William Slawski
