The Berlin Regional Court dismissed the plaintiff’s application for a preliminary injunction, holding that there was no infringement of either trademark law or unfair competition law.
The court found that there was no use as a trademark in the course of trade by the defendant. In particular, the Court held that the AI implemented by the defendant did not give the defendant decisive control over the content of the search results. The AI generated its responses based on information published by third parties that matched the user’s query while the defendant had no influence over the selection of sources used to generate the response. Users would therefore understand the AI-generated summaries as a new format for presenting search results rather than as the defendant’s own content. The plaintiff also did not substantiate that the defendant’s AI gave preference to websites or sponsored products of advertising customers. The appearance of perfume dupes under ""Sponsored Products"" did not change this assessment, since users percieve the defendant as a search engine rather than as a seller of displayed products. Payment for advertising alone was insufficient to establish trademark use.
The court also held that the plaintiff had no claims against the defendant under unfair competition law because the defendant and the plaintiff, a perfume manufacturer and distributor, were neither direct nor indirect competitors, since their areas of business were different. According to the Court, the defendant did not derive any direct economic benefit from the disputed AI texts, as the links to third-party websites were provided free of charge. The Court also found no indirect competition, since the defendant did not promote the business of the providers of the perfume dupes.