Practicomfort sells a variety of products including stairlifts from third parties. On Practicomfort’s website only stairlifts from competitors are offered for sale. In her Adword campaign, using the word OTOLIFT, the following ad appeared: (translated from Dutch- traplift means stairlift) Buy Traplift – traplift.nl- www.traplift.nl/ – Tip: Temporarily 10% discount on all stairlift models from 2012! stairlift Models – Advice – Quote-Brochures.
OTOLIFT is registered as a trademark. The Court decided that use of an Adword in this way this is a trademark infringement. The ad only contains the generic word stairlift. This may refer to stairlifts from OTOLIFT or third parties. The advertisement is not clear enough on what it offers, making it impossible for the consumer to understand that an alternative is being offered. The average internet consumer will assume that the devices are from OTOLIFT or an affiliated company, making it impossible to determine the origin of the products.
