CJEU Daimler/Együd Garage: trademark use in advertisement?

The former Mercedes-Benz dealer Együd did not violate trademark rights, even though its name and the Mercedes brand were shown together in an online advertisement which suggested a (no longer existing) commercial relationship between Együd and Mercedes Benz. The EU Court of Justice decided on this in the case of Daimler/Együd Garage. Együd argued that it had clearly instructed the company responsible for its web campaign to take the ad campaign offline, but this instruction had not been followed and Együd cannot be blamed for this.

Based on a customer service agreement between Mercedes-Benz and the garage owner, the garage owner was permitted to make use of the statement “official Mercedes Benz garage owner” in its ads at the time. Együd did this as well. They assigned internet advertising agency MTT the task of publishing an advertisement. After termination of the customer service contract with Mercedes-Benz, the garage owner asked MTT to put a stop to these advertisements. In addition, the garage owner asked other website administrators to remove the ads.  Despite these efforts, they continued to spread across the internet. Furthermore, when entering the search terms “együd” and “garage” on Google, a list of results appeared that showed advertisements (to which the link earlier in the text leads), in which Együd Garage is named an “official Mercedes-Benz garage owner”.   

The Court ruled that the former official distributor did not itself make use of the trademark in the advertisements. This case concerned business practices of other entrepreneurs (such as the administrators of internet search engines). The advertiser had no connection to them himself; these businesses operated under their own names. Additionally, the previously official garage owner had made the effort to ask website maintenance staff to remove the advertisements. Therefore, no violation. 

Moïra Truijens