Novak brought the action in October 2002, accusing the three search engines of trade mark infringement and unfair competition. Novak claims that when "Pets Warehouse" is entered as a search term, competitor sites are listed in the results. He claims that the search engines are selling his trade marks to his rivals as advertising keywords.
Google's AdWords service allows advertisers to sponsor particular search terms so that, for a fee, whenever that term is searched the advertiser's link will appear next to the search results.
The company does respect unarguable trade marks, and takes account of complaints in respect of these. Reebok is unlikely to succeed in sponsoring the word 'Nike', for example; but 'sportswear', being a generic word, would likely be available to anyone.
The question is whether the term "Pets Warehouse" is generic or not. Late last month Judge Denis Hurley said that he could not answer that question without further information. So the case will proceed.
Google faces other suits over the AdWords service – among them an action from The American Blind and Wallpaper Factory. Again, the case hinges on whether the trade marked term in dispute is generic or not.
But Google's lawyers have further trade mark issues to contend with. Its recently announced Gmail e-mail service – which has been slammed by privacy advocates this week – received another blow yesterday when a small UK firm announced that it had a registered UK trade mark in the phrase "Gmail".
According to the Financial Times the Gmail brand has been used by data-provider The Market Age since mid-2002, providing e-mail reports to 80 countries.
News site The Register reports that, since Google announced Gmail, Market Age has contacted the US Patent Office to register its interest in the mark and has seen its own share price double.
