According the New York Times, the infamous tattoo artist's famous designs, style, and even his name are all being targeted by fashion pirates looking to make a quick buck.
The trademark name is actually pulling in more than $700 million dollars a year. This is more than enough incentive for pirates to actually use search engine optimization to their advantage and create dummy websites that mimic Ed Hardy's website:
"Backers of the Ed Hardy name find themselves in a constant battle with counterfeiters who quickly and easily create fake Ed Hardy Web sites, almost indistinguishable from the real sites, and then try to manipulate Google’s search and advertising systems. The end goal is to make sure people hunting for Ed Hardy gear online find the fake goods first, lining the pockets of pirates, largely based in China."
Mr. Hardy was actually quoted by the New York Times as saying, “In the early days in the city, I might do one tattoo and then wait three days to do another. I think it’s funny and totally surreal to see what’s happened.”
It will be interesting to see what happens. In this case, it seems that counterfeiters are actually copying written content from the actual Ed Hardy website word for word. Recent case law has shown that use of a rival's trademark protected phrase as a keyword does not infringe on their mark, but if the ad actually displayed as a featured result has the protected phrase, then there is trademark infringement. According to Google's AdWords and AdSense policy, it is the advertiser's responsibility for the keywords they choose to generate advertisements and the text that they choose to use in those advertisements.
Let's see if there will be some lawsuits filed on the heels of this article!
