The Impact of Recommendation Technologies on the Legal Protection of Trademarks

The purpose of this article is to identify the conditions under which the use of recommender technologies may infringe exclusive trademark rights. The analysis shows that the use of a trademark by recommender technologies may constitute trademark infringement when two conditions are met simultaneously: 1) the advertisements included in a recommender-generated set appear in a misleading information context and the consumers viewing that set are insufficiently informed; and 2) there is a proven causal link between the deliberate association of advertisements with a third party’s trademark and the display of those advertisements.