Office Depot has filed suit against rival Staples Inc. for a series of search-engine ads that used as their keyword the name of an Office Depot subsidiary, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
Office Depot filed suit this month in U.S. District Court in West Palm Beach FL, the report said, charging Staples with trademark infringement, unfair competition, false advertising and deceptive trade practices.
Search engines place paid ads on their results pages that are linked to keywords, the terms searchers type in, and award those slots to the highest-bidding advertisers at auction.
The Office Depot suit alleges that Staples and a subsidiary bought the keyword
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