Washington–The case filed by GEICO against Google on May 4, 2004 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia has been resolved to the mutual satisfaction of both parties. According to an announcement from the parties, the terms of the settlement are confidential. No further comment on the settlement will be provided.
Last month, GEICO announced that a federal judge ruled that Google, under certain circumstances, was violating U.S. trademark law by letting advertisers attach their ads onto Web searches for the Washington-based insurer.
The ruling came from Judge Leonie Brinkema at U.S. District Court for Virginia's Eastern District in Alexandria. Google late last year had lost a motion for summary judgment.
Judge Brinkema's latest ruling found GEICO had established "a likelihood of confusions, and therefore a violation of the Lanham [trademark] Act, solely with regard to those sponsored links that use GEICO's trademarks in their headings or text."
The judge had postponed the trial of the issue for 30 days while the two sides held settlement talks.
GEICO's original trademark suit included Yahoo as defendant with Google. Yahoo, however, reached a settlement with the company after which searches for GEICO did not reveal rival insurer content.
The original complaint said the two Internet search engine firms were selling its trademarked GEICO and GEICO Direct names as search terms or key words to advertisers.
It was alleged that GEICO trademarked names were being sold to "advertisers who have no connection to GEICO and who seek to drive Internet traffic to their own Web sites when consumers perform a search using one of the famous GEICO trademarks."
Google, in response, said that in a GEICO survey of consumers about ads placed with the keyword "GEICO" without the word "GEICO" in title or text of the ad, "not one of those consumers was confused."
The search engine firm contended that even if an advertiser were infringing on the copyright, Google did not "induct that infringement. The advertiser is not writing its text at Google's urging, and it is not acting as Google's agent."
GEICO (Government Employees Insurance Company) is the fourth-largest private passenger auto insurer in the United States. It provides auto insurance coverage for more than 6 million policyholders and insures more than 10 million vehicles. GEICO is a member of the Berkshire Hathaway group of companies. The company provides consumers with sales, service and claims capabilities on its GEICO.com Web site.
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