Edible Ip, LLC v. Google, LLC

Edible IP owns the trademarks and trade name behind the Edible Arrangements fruit-arrangement business. Google sells advertisers the right to have their ads appear when someone searches certain keywords, and it included the term 'Edible Arrangements' in that auction without Edible IP's permission. Edible IP sued Google in a Georgia trial court, claiming theft of personal property, conversion, money had and received, and violations of Georgia's racketeering law, but specifically said it was not making a trademark infringement or consumer confusion claim. The trial court dismissed the case, and the Court of Appeals of Georgia agreed the complaint failed to state a valid claim. The Supreme Court of Georgia took up the case to decide whether that dismissal was correct. It held that because Edible IP disclaimed any claim of consumer confusion, and Georgia law only protects trade names from confusing or deceptive uses, none of Edible IP's four claims could succeed, so the dismissal was affirmed.

A trade name and its goodwill are property, but Georgia's civil theft, conversion, and unjust enrichment law only protect against uses of a trade name that are deceptive or likely to confuse consumers; because Edible IP disclaimed any consumer confusion, its claims, including the dependent RICO claim, all failed.

The ruling means Georgia companies cannot use ordinary property or racketeering claims to stop search engines from selling their brand names as keyword ads unless they can show consumer confusion, shaping how businesses protect brand value online and how ad platforms operate.

Affirmed

1. The court explained that a motion to dismiss can only be granted when the complaint shows with certainty that no set of facts would entitle the plaintiff to relief, reviewing the trial court's dismissal from scratch (de novo).
2. It found that a trade name and its associated goodwill (the positive reputation and expected customer loyalty a business enjoys) qualify as 'property' under Georgia's broad statutory definition, so Edible IP had a property interest to assert.
3. Reviewing Georgia statutes, the common law, and federal trademark law, the court found that trade names are only protected against uses that are deceptive or likely to confuse consumers, not against any and all use by others.
4. Because Edible IP's complaint specifically disclaimed any claim of consumer confusion, the court concluded Google's mere use of 'Edible Arrangements' as an auctioned search keyword did not amount to theft, conversion, or unlawful appropriation of that property.
5. Since the money-had-and-received claim depended on the same theory that Google was illegally profiting from a taking of the trade name, and the RICO claim depended on proving the underlying theft, both of those claims failed along with the theft and conversion claims.

• Edible Arrangements
• Google keyword advertising
• trade name rights
• civil theft claim
• trademark goodwill