• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, August 5, 2015

Google, Twitter, Pinterest, eBay and Yahoo are teaming up to defend Amazon's ability to decide how to display search engine results.

The tech giants say in court papers filed this week that like Amazon, they "are deeply invested in providing information in response to user queries, including retail purchase information and advertising."

Google, eBay and the others are backing Amazon's request for a new appellate hearing in a case brought by high-end watch manufacturer Multi-Time Machine.

In July, a panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Amazon potentially infringed Multi-Time Machine's trademark by returning links to different watch brands, like Luminox and Chase-Durer in response to searches for Multi-Time Machine. That 2-1 ruling reversed a decision by U.S. District Court Judge Dean Pregerson in the Central District of California, who dismissed Multi-Time Machine's lawsuit. The panel's decision sent the case back to Pregerson for a trial.

The panel said in its ruling that they agreed with Pregerson that Multi-Time Machine didn't provide evidence showing that any consumers who made purchases were confused about what they were buying. Despite that, the judges ruled that Amazon potentially infringed trademark by causing so-called "initial interest confusion," which they described as confusion that "creates initial interest in a competitor's product."

Digital rights groups Public Citizen and the Electronic Frontier Foundation have already filed papers criticizing that reasoning. They argue that companies have drawn on the controversial "initial interest confusion" concept to attempt to suppress online speech.

Google, eBay and the other tech companies add that it's problematic to require Amazon to face a trademark infringement lawsuit based on "a mere possibility of confusion by an unsophisticated consumer."

They say they are concerned that the panel's opinion could "give rise to a tide of trademark lawsuits based on only a speculative possibility of confusion."

The companies add that the goal "is to serve their users, not to confuse them."

"Trademark law should not chill innovation by unnecessarily restricting information about what competitive choices may appear in Internet user search results," the companies say.

Multi-Time Machine is expected to respond by next week to the request for a new hearing.