• April 26, 2004

AXA, the world's No. 3 insurer, is taking Google Inc. to court next month. This is latest the suit charging Google with the sale of a company's trademark to its competition through AdWords, Google's keyword search placement network.

Internet users who typed "AXA" or "Direct Assurance" into the search engine got ads for rival insurers alongside ordinary search results, according to the Associated Press.

Google is already embroiled in litigation in the U.S. and Europe over its lax trademark policy, but $86 billion strong AXA is the largest company yet to take legal action against the Mountain View California company.

A preliminary hearing on AXA's allegations of "brand counterfeiting" is scheduled for May 10 in Paris, according to the Associated Press.