As Eric Goldman reports, in Orion Bancorp Inc. v. Orion Residential Finance LLC, Orion Bancorp (the trademark holder) sued Orion Residential Finance (the accused infringer) for using the trademarked term “Orion” in AdWords ads. Orion Bancorp not only won their case, but also got the judge to issue an injunction against Orion Residential Finance to apply to future search engine advertising campaigns, barring them

from purchasing or using any form of advertising including keywords or “adwords” in internet advertising containing any mark incorporating Plaintiff’s Mark, or any confusingly similar mark, and shall, when purchasing internet advertising using keywords, adwords or the like, require the activation of the term “ORION” as negative keywords or negative adwords in any internet advertising purchased or used.

Goldman notes that this injunction may become standard in future trademark rulings.

On its face, the ruling may initially seem a little unfair: after all, shouldn’t Orion Residential Finance have a legitimate right to use its own name in search engine ads?

The answer, however, is no, it doesn’t: Orion Bancorp registered the trademark. As an extremely similar business (well, presumably so, based on their names), Orion Bancorp has a right (even a duty) to protect its trademark. Plus, they may not want to be confused for Orion Residential Finance, depending on each of their business practices.

What’s the best course of action for Orion Residential Finance? Obviously, they can appeal the ruling. But if the ruling ultimately stands, I’m thinking it’s probably time for a name change. And this time, use one that’s not already trademarked.

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Moderators: Kevin Ryan, Vice President, Global Content Director, Search Engine Strategies and Search Engine Watch, Kevin Heisler, Executive Editor, Search Engine Watch

Speakers: Mike Grehan, Founder and CEO, Searchvisible Ltd., Andrew Goodman, Principal, Page Zero Media, Brad Goldberg, GM, Search Business Group, Microsoft Corporation, James Lamberti, Senior Vice President, Search and Media, comScore, Inc, Jim Müller, Tech Lead, Universal Search, Google.

It’s Mike Grehan who begins the session or rather the "Dove beauty workshop" as he calls it, with a couple of searches to illustrate Google’s Universal Search. He describes the utility of some of the search results, and that someone might wish to pay Google for it. He follows this exercise with the example of "Bourne Ultimatum" which yields "Google Promotion" paid ads, "Get Showtimes," "One Box" amongst other search results.

Kevin Ryan the moderator then runs a footage of the latest Ask.com ads, James then explains a slide from Comscore, he describes the integrated search and its dependence on the content that’s owned by the search engines companies. He suggests a changing value proposition on the part of consumers, and that there’s a need for retraining to see and make sense of the search engine result page. He then quickly moves on to the data which clearly shows the increase in search traffic, the year 2006 had 20 billion more searches performed as compared to 2005, and since then the numbers have swelled up to 35 billion more searches.

He then talks about the opportunities that exist as a consequence of integrated, but he also mentioned the catch of competition that it brings along. To prove this competition he illustrates with the example of Google. Google’s data for three years from 2005 through 2007 shows a drop in the number of paid ads by Google in the SERPs. Like in 2005 it was 40% had a paid ad from Google, in 2006 it increased to 70% only to fall down to 50% in 2007. Apart from Yahoo! Who’s figures remaining more or less constant the other engines show a downtrend. He said that Comscore’s gonna measure this space with what they call as "success rate." The last slide had Google on top with 79%, when it came to clicks on the first result pages.

It’s then Mike who takes over the mic and discusses the way search is changing for the better. He recalls how his kids got a Facebook from the "10 blue links" and suggested that the Facebook users would ask for more than just this.

Next, its Jim who takes over and discusses some of the researching that they’ve done which includes a video on a result page itself. He goes on to state the policies that Google and MSN have. Like MSN clearly express their undesirability towards having paid inclusion, and Google clearly differentiates between the paid content and the organic content. He suggested that more deliberations need to be made by them about where the ads should appear, including the local ad content, so that the paid content is clearly identifiable.

He suggests that people appear to like the Universal Search, however there isn’t enough hardcore date to prove the point, he suggests that it’s important to have data. He thinks that the search engines would change, albeit slowly "like a glacier." And suggests that sometimes the consumers aren’t all that ready for the changes that are implemented, as they’ve already got into the groove of doing things in a particular way and it takes time to adapt to the changes.

MSN’s Brad suggests a need to analyze the behavior or the users to know what click and also why, so that user experience can be enhanced. Ryan intervenes to ask whether Ask.com is already on the move, to which James agrees and says that they’ve maintained their position, infact they’ve outdone AOL. He says that Ask 3D is a example to that effect.

The discussion then moves over to SEO and Ryan questions, that given the changes does SEO still has a good shelf life or not. Mike responds and says that every so often he writes "SEO is dead," he makes so many people completely outraged. He said it is expected over the years that people would become more and more choosy about bettor content. Jim then throws up a reminder that it’s not happening big time this time. Mike continues and says don’t stop optimizing now, however in the future there would be more than just optimization. Then James adds that the value of search is going to be important but not many people are talking about it.

The next question is posed by Kevin he wants to know from the panel to "tell him something he doesn’t know." According to Brad the search should be similar to the way in which it is now, that is query based. The point of emphasis however is that most of it would be dictated by the users experience. Jim opines, that the vertical search engines would be a part of the other search engines such as Google. Jim also feels that it is important to understand that the search engine users are busy and says that they might just want to go to one place to find what they’re looking for, meaning Universal Search. He says, like it happens when people go to Google maps to find info. The future should see merging of verticals to a single interface.

James also points out to this trend and illustrates with the example of Expedia, which gets you information when you want to travel better than any other search engine. So the trend is towards richer content wherein you’d have just one thing that satisfies everyone.

One person from the audience Barbara Coll, suggests that when the work involves that of working with large organizations you are required to optimize lots of different type of content. So the task gets exponentially difficult, like when you have to work with 17 different divisions and you’ve to educate everyone about the optimization. Mike agrees with her and says that it is indeed true that the time need to educate increases.

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Screenshots of the service appeared on the web earlier this week showing search results with an expansion button that presents longer excerpts from linked sites as well as links to related content and a ‘search this site’ option.

PC Magazine suggests this is an implementation of the Orion technology acquired a couple weeks back. I tend to think that is not likely – I can’t see how they could implement it that fast. More likely, Google had developed their own technology in house and, being close to launching it, acquired Orion to avoid any patent infringement issues.

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Andy Beal is an internet marketing consultant and considered one of the world’s most respected and interactive search engine marketing experts. Andy has worked with many Fortune 1000 companies such as Motorola, CitiFinancial, Lowes, Alaska Air, DeWALT, NBC and Experian.

You can read his internet marketing blog at Marketing Pilgrim and reach him at andy.beal@gmail.com.

Google’s Hunt Led By Orion

Google is keeping its new employee, Ori Allon, under wraps at the Googleplex. Though several outlets have reported on his development of the Orion search tool and its rights acquisition by Google, nothing beyond Allon’s employment in Mountain View has been disclosed.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported how Google and Yahoo both expressed interest in Allon’s work. Yahoo apparently came in second to Google, a familiar place for the Sunnyvale-based portal company.

Orion reportedly provides text extracts for each link found with a search, showing the keywords from the query and where they are in each extract. The idea is to keep people from having to go back and forth between the search result page and each link while looking for a page that best meets the searcher’s needs.

“This will give the information directly and immediately. It will be a great time-saver for users,” Allon’s PhD supervisor Eric Martin at New South Wales said in the article.

The next question that should be asked here is why would Google pay for a tool they already seem to possess. In Google Book Search, such extracts or snippets of text containing keywords appear when using the service to find books containing those terms.

Search Engine Watch’s Danny Sullivan commented on just how those extracts could impact Google if put into use:

Perhaps the algorithm works faster or more effectively than what Google has developed over its existence. Or as blogger Garett Rogers posted, it could provide a list of suggested topics related to the query being made.

But that’s been done as well, particularly with the Clusty metasearch engine. And by Dogpile. And even on Ask.com.

The Herald’s report said the deal with Google could yield millions for the University. Once Google implements the project, expected by Martin to be completed inside of 18 months, users can see just what Google purchased and how well it works.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

Allon said Orion will complement existing search engines like Yahoo, MSN or Google. This engine will help weed out pages that are less important to searches and will help search engines improve relevancy, which is always needing refinement anyway. This engine will also help introduce other pages with relevant content too. It just doesn’t with the key words you typed in, it will also look for related topics that might contain valuable information as well.

PhysOrg quotes Andrew Stead of New South Innovations saying, “Bill Gates was recently quoted in Forbes magazine as saying that we need to take the search way beyond how people think of it today. We believe that Orion will do that.”

“The results to the query are displayed immediately in the form of expanded text extracts, giving you the relevant information without having to go the website–although you still have that option if you wish,”

As many experts like Gates suggest the world of Internet search is changing dramatically, this could certainly be the direction of the future, putting relevance and content ahead of many other factors. While all search engines claim to be the most relevant, most watchers feel they have a long way to go. Orion just might be a step in that direction. Keep your eyes open. This might be one to watch for.

John Stith is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.