Correction on the Google vs. Geico case with
comments from Google's Lawyer:

Apparently the ruling was in favor of Google
more than was origionally reported by various
sources on the internet. Here are some comments
from one of Google's lawyers:

"I saw your post on the GEICO ruling and thought it might be
helpful to clarify a few things.

The recent ruling by the judge in this case was essentially
a written version of the judge's oral ruling of December 15,
2004. Her ruling was an extraordinary victory for Google.

In the critical part of the decision, the judge ruled
unequivocally in Google's favor.

In her written ruling, she stated that the evidence
"refutes the allegation that the use of the trademark
as a keyword, without more, causes a likelihood of
confusion." That confirms that Google's policy on
trademarks and keywords is lawful.

There was another issue in the case that concerned
the use of trademarks in ad text, but that part of the
case was not significant and Google already has a
policy that addresses this concern - and we always
have.

Here's a reference to that:
http://www.google.com/tm_complaint_adwords.html

And here is an excerpt from the trademark policy that
you will find there: "When we receive a complaint from
a trademark owner, we will only investigate whether the
advertisements at issue are using terms
corresponding to the trademarked term in the
advertisement's content. If they are, we will require
the advertiser to remove the trademarked term from
the content of the ad and prevent the advertiser from
using the trademarked term in ad content in the future.

Please note that we will not disable keywords in
response to a trademark complaint."

Google is extremely pleased with the outcome in this case.

The important issue for us in it - which is the use of
trademarks as keyword triggers - was decided
decisively in our favor."

Michael Kwun
Litigation Counsel
Google Inc.

-Steve

Steve Blom
Certified Google Adwords Professional

Adwords Training Video Author:

Blog:
http://marketingnewsblog.adwordstraining.org

Free Adwords video:
http://www.adwordstraining.org/video/free_adwords_tutorial_video.htm

Contact: steve@adwordstraining.org