The use of trademarks as keywords to serve up competitive advertising when someone uses the trademark as a search term is a hot topic. Recently Google sued American Blind for declaratory judgment that using keywords in this way is kosher. Presumably Google sought to take on the claim that selling keywords is trademark infringement and get it resolved in a convenient, friendly forum. Now GEICO has sued Google on the same kind of claim, in the Rocket Docket, aka the Eastern District of Virginia. GEICO may be hoping that its suit will rev up fast and speed ahead of the suit here in California and insure a precedent, before the American Blind case gets out of first gear. Risky, in my opinion. Northern Virginia juries are pretty Internet savvy. I wonder what happens if you search on Google for "gecko"?
Are you the keymaster?
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