American Airlines is suing Google, claiming trademark infringement because competitors are purchasing AA’s trademarks as keywords to drive traffic to their sites. These type of suits are common, a cost of doing business for Google. But the issue will remain unresolved as long as the courts are split as to whether the practice of using trademarks as keywords constitutes infringement.

What does this mean for you? Unless you’ve got the deep pockets to fight in court with the trademark owner, you may want to make the decision to avoid using the marks in your pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns. Even if you’re legally right (and that’s not a sure bet), you can still be ruined in a lawsuit that eats up your time and money.

Then again, you could be one of the lucky ones who uses the keywords and doesn’t hear a peep from the trademark owners. Kind of like playing Russian Roulette. Do you feel lucky?

About the Author

With an advanced international law degree from Georgetown University and more than 14 years of real world legal experience, Attorney Mike Young shows entrepreneurs how to protect and grow their businesses online. He's the author of Internet Marketing Legal Secrets Revealed. Not just a lawyer who focuses exclusively on Internet and marketing law, Mike’s been working with computers for more than 27 years (his first computer was an Atari 400 with 8 KiB RAM) and started representing Internet businesses back in 1996.