Passport Health’s Suit Over Search Engine Ads Fails at 4th Cir.

Passport Health LLC lost its bid Thursday to hold Avance Health System Inc. liable under trademark law at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, because Avance’s ads on Bing weren’t likely to cause customer confusion.

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 ...