Despite their bitter differences, Google and ABWF won’t be firing anything more dangerous than sharpened, expensive legalese at each other should their dispute remain unsettled into the fall.

CNBC said federal judge Jeremy Fogel set November 9th as the jury selection date in ABWF’s trial against Google. ABWF complained of trademark infringement by competitors through Google’s AdWords program, and filed suit in 2003.

Google permits competitors to buy keywords to trigger paid search ads through its AdWords program. However, trademarked words cannot be displayed by a competitor in an ad. Google’s chief paid search rival, Yahoo, does not permit competitor keyword buys.

In April, Google received only part of the summary judgment they wanted in the case. Fogel set aside ABWF’s claims of infringement against the marks "American Blinds" and "American Blind," but allowed the rest of the case to proceed.

That wasn’t the outcome Google expected. They have beaten GEICO and Rescuecom in similar cases (Rescuecom is appealing), though as Reuters noted they lost a French court ruling to Louis Vuitton.

Google, AOL, Earthlink, and Ask are all on the receiving end of American Blind & Wallpaper Factory’s lawsuit over trademark infringement. ABWF contended the use of its trademarks as keywords to trigger competitor advertising violated those marks.

Hopes for shutting the lawsuit off before it could pick up steam were dashed when US District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel denied part of Google’s motion for summary judgment in the case.

A couple of claims made by ABWF regarding the marks "American Blinds" and "American Blind" have been set aside by Fogel.

Google settled one suit with insurance firm Geico, while winning out against an action by computer repair firm Rescuecom.

The latter company is still appealing its case.

AdWords does not allow competitors to display trademarks they do not own in contextual ads.

They do allow competitors to purchase those marks as keywords to trigger ads that do not violate Google’s terms of service.

Reuters cited part of Fogel’s opinion on AdWords and its impact on law:

"The large number of businesses and users affected by Google’s AdWords program indicates that a significant public interest exists in determining whether the AdWords program violates trademark law," Fogel wrote in his decision.

AOL and Earthlink ended up in this suit as ABWF countersued Google over the use of trademarks. Holland+Knight said in 2004 Google sued ABWF first in California, asking for declaratory judgment on the matter in late 2003.

ABWF countersued Google and brought the other defendants into the case; the company may have been afraid of facing Google in California, as they chose to countersue in New York instead. AOL had recently settled a lawsuit with Playboy over Netscape’s use of certain terms like ‘playmate’ to trigger ads, only to have the ABWF action quickly follow that.

ABWF does $103 million in annual sales according to their Hoovers’ profile; the company changed CEOs in May 2006.

The rest of their lawsuit against Google will proceed; Danny Sullivan has posted the 21-page decision by Fogel on his Search Engine Land site.