French Firm Wants to Cancel Adwords Trademark, Hit with UDRP

French firm files to cancel one of Google’s trademarks, gets hit with UDRP over .mobi domain name.

Google has filed a UDRP against the owner of a French trademark for “adwords” over his domain name ad-words.mobi.

The domain owner, Francotel, LLC, has a French trademark for “adwords”, but Google has some as well. Francotel has also filed for cancellation of Google’s European Union trademark for “Adwords”, although it appears the firm has filed a newer application for the mark.

The domain name resolves to a page that states “Place your Ad with some Words here”.

The bottom of the page states “don’t be the devil”, which may be a jab at Google’s slogan “Do no evil”.

It will be interesting to see if the UDRP panel decides this case, or if they decide to punt to the courts.