A US district court has ruled against Google in a trade mark action over the sale of the terms "Geico" and "Geico Direct" in AdWords, its keyword advertising service. The judge found that there was infringement where the terms were used in the text of sponsored ads.
Car insurance firm GEICO sued both Google and Yahoo! subsidiary Overture in May 2004 over the sale of its registered trade marks as sponsored search terms in the keyword advertising services of both search engines.
According to GEICO, the court has stayed the trial for 30 days to give the parties an opportunity to settle. If the parties do not settle, the trial will continue on the question of damages and on the issue of who is liable: Google or Google"s advertisers.