Apparently, the ability to make lemons into lemonade is one of Google’s strong points, or it could be they are living by the whole “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” thing.
In response to a court ruling concerning trademark infringement of auto insurance company Geico, a ruling that many stated went against the search engine, the Google Blog has a post detailing the company’s position toward the ruling.
The issue for the court to decide upon dealt with Google’s AdWords trademark policy and how Geico felt they were infringed upon. Geico felt their trademark was being misrepresented when Google would allow other advertisers to use the words “Geico” and “Geico Direct” in the AdWords text creative. According to a MarketingVOX write-up, the judge agreed with Geico, ruling that in these instances, there was a violation the trademark rights of Geico, but only in the instances where the trademarked terms were used in the ad copy text or the ad’s header.
The judges decision came after she had ruled against Geico’s complaint of competitor ads showing up for Geico search queries in Google. However, Google was not implicated in her second ruling, at least not yet. The judge also issued a 30-day stay to allow Google and Geico to settle. If this isn’t accomplished, the trial will reconvene and the judge will decide damages and who’s at fault, Google or the advertisers.
Many took these proceedings as going against Google, except Google themselves. On their blog spot, Google general counsel and VP David Drummond issued a post explaining Google’s position on the ruling. First off, Drummond feels those who are calling the ruling as being against ruling are doing so erroneously. Google feels like the ruling against the use of trademarked terms in ad text is of little significance.
Because of Google’s trademark policy, which calls for ad copy removal if it using trademarked terms, provided the owner of the trademark issues a complaint, they feel the second ruling did not affect them as much as the first ruling did (the first ruling dealt with keyword queries generating competitor ads).
Drummond ended his post by acknowledging there may be AdWords policy changes on the horizon:
Finally, even though we believe our current policy strikes a good balance between advertisers, users and trademark owners, don’t be surprised if our policy evolves over time. We believe it is possible for an advertiser to create an ad that uses a trademark in a legal and non-confusing way – after all that is what comparative advertising is all about.
Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for murdok. Visit murdok for the latest search news.
