A panel of appeals judges ruled two to one that the company will have to face a trademark lawsuit because its online Amazon search results lead to the competitors of a high-end watchmaker. American consumers have been complaining for years that their search results often don’t produce the specific products but instead present similar products, and on Monday a US appeals court agreed, saying Amazon.com, Inc. The 2-1 decision in support of watchmaker Multi Time Machine (MTM)-which first sued Amazon in 2011-reversed a verdict reached by a lower court two years ago.
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In a dissenting opinion, Judge Barry Silverman concluded that, “because Amazon’s search result clearly labeled the name and manufacturer of each product offered for sale and even included photographs of the items, no reasonably prudent shopper accustomed to shopping online would likely be confused as to the source of the products”.
According to the court ruling, the MTM “Special Ops” are a military style model of watches which are not sold on Amazon’s web site but if an Amazon shopper searches “MTM watch”, the site will not say it does not carry MTM products and will rather show up similar watches manufactured by MTM’s competitors. Sure you have. But while this search behavior is arguably great for customers, it’s the reasoning behind a trademark lawsuit against the online retailer.
Just like how Google has faced criticisms for the way it displays its search results, it seems that this is an issue that Amazon has run into as well, so much so that they’re being taken to court over the way the company displays its search results for products. The district court found Amazon’s use of MTM’s trademark created no likelihood of confusion as a matter of law.
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Amazon did not immediately return a request for comment.
