Last Thursday, a Federal court dismissed a law suit against Google, for allowing companies to buy an ad on the Google network which brings up the company's ad when a direct competitor's name is queried. The court found this practice did not violate any trademark of the queried company, where Google is not displaying nor using the trademark's name or logo, but rather a user is simply searching for it.

Google is the only search engine that currently allows an advertiserer to buy a competitor's name. I would think that Yahoo and MSN may re-evaluate their stand on bidding on competitors terms, even if those terms are registered trademarks.