Forth Worth (TX) – American Airlines has settled its year-long lawsuit against Google.  The airline had sued Google over alleged trademark infringement claiming that Google's search results were tying up trademarks such as AAdvangate (frequent flier program) to websites and companies that have nothing to do with American.

This was a typical lawsuit resulting from a basic misunderstanding of how Google’s search engine works.  Google is first and foremost a marketing company and is being paid by advertisers who displaying their ads and links to their products when a specific keyword is entered. The ads appear outside of the main search window, usually along the margins of a page.  However, you can avoid the system by putting a search term in quotation marks such as "aadvantage".

Thus, it was no wonder that the judge dismissed the lawsuit. After a week of legal counseling, American Airlines decided to drop further legal proceedings. Both sides agreed to pay their own legal fees.

Read more … Associated Press via Google News

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