Rosetta Stone Sues Google

Rosetta Stone, a Virginia-based company that builds language-education software, sued Google (GOOG) today for allegedly enabling infringement on its trademark. The software company alleges that last month, Google changed its Adwords policy to allow advertisers to buy ads next to trademarked keywords without first securing the permission of the trademark owner. The lawsuit seeks an injunction barring Google from selling any Rosetta Stone keywords to advertisers.

In a press release, Rosetta Stone General Counsel Michael Wu wrote, "Google and its advertisers benefit financially from and trade off the goodwill and reputation of Rosetta Stone without incurring the substantial expense that Rosetta Stone has incurred in building up its popularity, name recognition, and brand loyalty."

Google has not yet responded to a request for comment. We'll let you know if they do.

Update: Google spokesman Andrew Pederson has written back, and while he can't specifically comment on Rosetta Stone's lawsuit, he did have this to say about Adword's general policy: "We allow trademarks to be used as keyword triggers in AdWords because users searching on Google benefit from being able to choose from a variety of competing advertisers. It's completely normal for a supermarket to stock different brands of cereal on the same shelf or for a magazine to run Ford ads opposite of an article about Toyota, so it doesn't make sense to limit competition online by restricting the number of choices available to users. Just as it's reasonable to expect a range of brands on any shelf in a grocery store, providing users on Google with more than one option when they search for a brand name or other trademark helps them to find the best product at the lowest price."