Trademarks – Decision Entered in Geico v. Google dispute

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, held that Google’s sale of the trademark “Geico” as a search term does not broadly violate Geico’s trademark interest. However, Google’s use of the trademark “Geico” in the sponsored ads (i.e. “get rates cheaper than Geico by clicking here”) does. While its difficult to extrapolate the meaning of this decision beyond the search engine sector, it does provide some breaching room to other Internet companies who face frequent claims of third party trademark infringement based on content that they either transmit or host.