Case: Trademarks/Likelihood of Confusion (4th Cir.)

The Fourth Circuit affirmed a federal district court in North Carolina’s grant of summary judgment to Avance Health Systems Inc. in Passport Health LLC’s trademark infringement action. Avance Health System Inc. provides accounting, records management, and advertising support for a healthcare company, and hired a marketing company to advertise its website. The marketing company bought keywords from search engines to generate Avance ads beside specific search results, including “passport health” on Google and Bing, without Avance’s input. Avance told the marketers to stop using the ads when it was sued by Passport in 2013, and Passport dropped the case. Passport ...