The 2014 South African case of Cochrane Steel Products v
M-Systems Group (Pty) Ltd made the headlines because
it was South Africa's first keywords case and we wrote about
that case too. It dealt with the issue of whether Cochrane, which
sells security fencing under the trade mark Clearvu, could stop its
competitor, M-Systems, from bidding on words like 'clear
vu' as Google AdWords, something it did to ensure that
people who search ClearVu get to see M-Systems' GoogleAds.
The court, following international precedents including the
Louis Vuitton and Interflora cases in the EU, as
well as the Intercity v Nakedbus case in New Zealand, held
that there was nothing inherently wrong from a trade mark law
perspective with a company using a competitor's trade mark as a
keyword, provided that this use didn't result in any consumer
confusion. As there was no confusion here, Cochrane's case
failed.
