Flower Power: High Court Rules That Marks & Spencer Did Infringe Interflora’s Trade Mark

The High Court has handed down judgment in the long-running case of Interflora Inc v Marks and Spencer plc [2013] EWHC 1291 (Ch), May 2013. The case concerned the unauthorised use of third-party trade marks as advertising keywords through Google's AdWords service.

The dispute arose after M&S bought multiple keywords on Adwords which contained the trade mark Interflora, the name of the world's largest flower delivery network. Google Adwords displays sponsored advertisements (positioned in a specific part of their search results page) in response to a user searching for particular keywords. Keywords are available to be purchased and, where there are multiple purchasers, an auction is held to determine who will benefit from the most attractively-positioned advert. Google generates revenue by taking a fee from the advertiser on a "cost-per-click" basis.

After M&S purchased various Interflora keywords, users searching for Interflora were initially presented with a link to M&S's website...