The big news today in the search world is the settlement in the long-running legal battle between Google and American Blind & Wallpaper Factory. At issue was Google’s AdWords appearing on phrases that contained American Blind’s trademarks. The result was a settlement that seems like a complete victory for Google. American Blind dropped the suit on the condition that Google not change any of its AdWords trade-name policies.

The suit had been in progress since 2003 and I’ve been anxiously awaiting the result. Unfortunately, I don’t think the result produced any resolution to the issue. Trademark protection is still a big issue for Google, other search engines, and everyone involved in internet marketing. Yet, there are still no clear-cut rules that we all can follow and be sure that we are in the clear. In fact, another suit, with American Airlines, was filed just a few weeks ago.

When I consider the issue, I keep coming back to two problems that are persistent sticking points in these disputes: generic names and local/regional businesses.

Generic Names
Generic names present a huge problem for search engines. The generic nature of “American Blind & Wallpaper Factory” presents a wonderful case in point. Is someone who types in “American Blinds” looking for their specific company’s product, blinds that are made in the U.S.A. or perhaps even a style (if you didn’t want Venetian, what would you type?). What may be a unique enough name for the USPTO to accept as a registered trademark, may still cause great difficulty for a search engine in determining what the user is looking for. American Airlines faces the same issue. If someone who just moves to our country from Nepal searches for “American Airlines,” she may very well want a list that shows all “American” airlines, not the one that happens to have that name.

Local & Regional Businesses
There are thousands upon thousands of local and regional businesses in the U.S. alone. For example, I just did Google search for Crossroads Barbershop. Strangely enough, it’s the name of the first barber shop my father took me to in California and also the local shop here in town. From my Google search, there are many more in cities all across the country. Should Google be required to enforce trade name restrictions at a local level on AdWords? The problem here is not just semantic, as it is with generic names, but operational. How many people would Google need to employ to adjudicate trademark claims for every local business in the world?

A great intersection of the two problems is the company Safe Auto Insurance, a regional company with a somewhat generic name. A number of years ago we had a keyword list that contained the phrase “Safe Auto Insurance” as a keyword. Because they didn’t advertise in Oklahoma at the time, our bid manager did not recognize the phrase as a trade name before uploading the keyword list. Even today, many companies bid on that phrase. Are consumers who type in the name looking for the brand, or a safe insurance company?

Despite Google’s victory today, I think this issue is far from settled and is still of paramount importance to advertisers , search engines, consumers and search marketers. We need a legal framework that allows legitimate comparative advertising, protects consumers from deception, allows advertisers to protect their brands, and doesn’t force search engines into unworkable business practices. Is that even possible? I have no idea, but if someone knows of a simple set of rules that get us there, please let me know.