• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, April 12, 2009

Google AdWords have triggered another lawsuit, this time by Internet marketing entrepreneur Jeremy Schoemaker. The case has an especially odd twist: The alleged infringer is himself a Google AdWords employee.

The lawsuit, filed by Schoemaker in state court in Douglas County, Neb., alleges that Google employee Keyen Farrell and his father, John Farrell, used Schoemaker's trademarked term "Shoemoney" in a paid search ad directing people to myincentivewebsite.com.

"The goods and services offered by the Farrell Defendants ... are similar in kind to goods and services offered by ShoeMoney Media Group, i.e., teaching and/or enabling third parties to make money on the Internet," the complaint alleges.

The Farrells allegedly went beyond using "Shoemoney" to merely trigger their ad by including the term "Shoemoney" in the text of the ad, as a headline.

Google allows trademarks to trigger ads, but has long prohibited marketers from using such terms in the ad copy.

In his complaint, Schoemaker alleges that Keyen Farrell is an "Adwords account specialist," but doesn't speculate about whether Keyen Farrell used that status to bypass the company's restrictions on the use of trademarks in ad copy.

Schoemaker says his blog, Shoemoney.com, generates ad revenue. He also sells $99-per-month subscriptions to "Shoemoney Tools," which teach people how to run search campaigns, optimize sites for search engines and the like.

Myincentivewebsite.com sells materials that help people how operate "incentive sites" that pay Web users to accept marketers' offers. "Each time someone signs up for a free Discover Card they are given a $10 cash incentive, but you get a $40 commission, leaving $30 PURE PROFIT!," states the copy on the site. Myincentivewebsite sells instructions, software and some other material for $17.

Schoemaker says that at least three other companies have used "Shoemoney" in search ads, but that this case marks the first time he has sued over the matter. "The others complied with a cease-and-desist or were settled before anything was filed," he said.

A Google spokesman said only, "We take this kind of allegation seriously, but we're not able to comment on specifics right now."

Google has been sued for trademark infringement before, but the lawsuits tend to be about the use of trademarks to trigger paid search ads. But at least one other case, the lawsuit brought by insurance company Geico, there was also an allegation related to the use of trademarks in ad copy. Google and Geico eventually settled that portion of the lawsuit.