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Google and AOL Shut Down Park West Gallery Ads for Violation of Fine Art Registry Trademarks
Google and AOL removed a series of illegal Adword ads placed by Michigan based Park West Gallery, known for its cruise ship art auctions, because they violated Fine Art Registry trademarks and sought to use a Fine Art Registry domain name as a subdomain of Park West in order to divert traffic, defame Fine Art Registry and obtain commercial advantage. PR9.NET March 11, 2009 - Phoenix, AZ – A series of ads paid for by Park West Gallery, prepared and produced by their PR agency Fleishman-Hillard and distributed through Google and AOL, which violated Global Fine Art Registry, LLC trademarks and were clearly written to harm Fine Art Registry and benefit Park West Gallery's own commercial advantage, were removed by Google and AOL at the request of Global Fine Art Registry through its intellectual property attorney, Donald J. Lenkszus, PC. The offending ads began appearing at the beginning of February 2009. Someone searching on Google or AOL using the keyword "Fine Art Registry" would be presented with a sponsored link by Park West Gallery which used a Global Fine Art Registry owned domain name, "FineArtAdvocacy.com" as a subdomain for Park West Gallery. This link deviously led to one of several Park West Gallery web pages whose content was defamatory of Fine Art Registry and contained many links to Park West Gallery's website pages promoting Park West, and a link to Park West's PR agency, Fleishman-Hillard to request further information. These pages included Fine Art Registry trademarks used illegally and without permission. Don Lenkszus, intellectual property attorney for Fine Art Registry, wrote a number of "cease and desist" letters to Google, AOL, Park West and Fleishman-Hillard with the result that Google removed the illegal ads. "My client Global Fine Art Registry, LLC, doing business as FINE ART REGISTRY, an art world pioneer, has been the subject of what, in my opinion, is attempted cyber thievery for a second time by Park West Gallery – the sponsor of dubious cruise ship art auctions," said Don Lenkszus, adding, "From my experience any business that engages in deliberate illegal activities such as cyber thievery is not to be trusted in any business dealing." In response to Don Lenkszus' letters, Google's Legal Support Team wrote on 5 March 09, "Your complaint has been processed, and the ads for FineArtAdvocacy.ParkWestGallery.com are no longer using your trademark FAR in the ad text." And counsel for Fleishman-Hillard confirmed on March 6 that her company had been responsible for creating and placing the ads and that they had now removed the illegally included trademarks: "(ii) as to the Google sponsored key word searches placed for Park West Gallery, we have removed the following terms 'Fine Art[s] Registry', 'Fine Art[s] Advocacy' and 'FAR.'" A complete report including the letters and replies can be found on the FineArtAdvocacy website along with a report and documents from Park West's earlier similar attack and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) arbitration against Park West Gallery's violation of Fine Art Registry trademarks. # # #
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Donald J. Lenkszus is a business-oriented Intellectual Property counsel who has been an attorney since 1975. He has been in-house counsel to Honeywell, ITT Corp and GTE. Based in Carefree, Arizona, Don has been in private practice since 1993. In January 2000, Don started his own law firm and serves a select number of clients. His practice is limited to patent, trademark, copyright, trade secret, Internet, and other intellectual property matters. His clients range from Global Fine Art Registry, LLC to a magazine publisher, a medical device company, consumer product companies, and high technology companies. Don has a reputation for aggressive defense of his clients where their intellectual property rights are endangered. For further information contact Donald J. Lenkszus, PC, Tel 602-463-2010, Fax 480-595-7695, don@azpatent.com About Fine Art Registry Fine Art Registry™ is today's only high tech solution to the age old problems that have existed in the art world since before the Ancient Greeks: How to establish provenance, prove authenticity and ownership, prevent forgery and fakery, deter theft and, basically, make it possible to create, buy and sell works of art with the security of knowing that they are what they claim to be. If you are an artist, collector, gallery director, museum curator or anyone interested in making a permanent record of and protecting visual art and valuables, then you should find out what FAR® has to offer you. |
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