In the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ___________________________

August Term 2022 No. 22-1634

1-800 CONTACTS, INC.,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

JAND, INC., DBA WARBY PARKER,

Defendant-Appellee.

___________________________

On Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York ___________________________

(Argued June 9, 2023; Decided October 8, 2024) Before: CHIN, CARNEY, and LEE, Circuit Judges.

Plaintiff-Appellant 1-800 Contacts, Inc., appeals from a judgment entered in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Castel, J.), granting a motion for judgment on the pleadings in favor of Defendant-Appellee JAND, Inc., d.b.a. Warby Parker. The Complaint alleges that Defendant-Appellee used Plaintiff-Appellant’s trademarks—its brand name 1-800-Contacts and related variations—in keyword search advertisements in violation of the federal Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1114, 1125(a), and New York State common law. Defendant- Appellee allegedly engaged in a plan to purchase search engine keywords consisting of Plaintiff-Appellant’s trademarks for use as keywords in online advertising campaigns and then designed misleading paid advertisements, so that customers searching for Plaintiff-Appellant’s website by typing “1-800-Contacts” into a web browser would be diverted to Defendant-Appellee’s website instead. However, Plaintiff-Appellant does not claim that Defendant-Appellee actually used the former’s trademarks other than purchasing them as keywords in the online search engine auctions.

We now reiterate that the mere act of purchasing a search engine keyword that is a competitor’s trademark does not alone, in the context of keyword search advertising, constitute trademark infringement. Upon examination of the remaining allegedly infringing components of Defendant-Appellee’s search advertising campaign—i.e., the resulting advertisement itself and landing webpage linked within, neither of which displays 1-800-Contact’s trademarks— we conclude that Plaintiff-Appellant failed to plausibly allege any likelihood of consumer confusion under this Circuit’s test in Polaroid Corp. v. Polarad Electronics Corp., 287 F.2d 492 (2d Cir. 1961). Thus, we AFFIRM the district court’s judgment. ___________________________

STEPHEN R. FISHBEIN, Shearman & Sterling LLP, New York, NY (Todd M. Stenerson, Brian C. Hauser, Shearman & Sterling LLP, Washington, DC; Ryan A. Shores, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, Washington, DC; Steven J. Joffee, Ethan J. Bercot, Michael Best & Friedrich LLP, Cottonwood Heights, UT; Thomas A. Agnello, Michael Best & Friedrich LLP, Milwaukee, WI, on the brief) for Plaintiff-Appellant.

G. ROXANNE ELINGS (L. Danielle Toaltoan, on the brief), Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, New York, NY, for Defendant-Appellee. ___________________________ EUNICE C. LEE, Circuit Ju