According to Geico if no agreement is reach the trial will continue as to the amount of damages and on the issue of who is liable, Google, or the advertisers on Mountain View, Calif.-based Google.

Charles Davies, Geico's general counsel said in a statement that in light of the decisions, "search engines and their advertisers should consider their potential liability if they intend to use other companies trademarks in paid search advertising."

Geico's original trademark suit included Yahoo as defendant with Google. Yahoo, however, reached a settlement with the company after which searches for Geico did not reveal rival insurer content.

The original complaint said the two Internet search engine firms were selling its trademarked Geico and Geico Direct names as search terms or key words to advertisers.

It was alleged that Geico trademarked names were being sold to "advertisers who have no connection to Geico and who seek to drive Internet traffic to their own Web sites when consumers perform a search using one of the famous Geico Marks."

Google in response said that a Geico survey of consumers about ads placed with the keyword geico without the word 'geico' in title or text of the ad, "not one of those consumers was confused."

The search engine firm contended that even if an advertiser were infringing on the copyright Google did not "induct that infringement. The advertiser is not writing its text at Google's urging, and it is not acting as Google's agent."

Google could not immediately be reached for comment.

Attorney Davies promised that Geico would "aggressively enforce its trademark rights against purchasers of its trademarks on search engines and against search engines that sell Geico trademarkes to advertisers."