Hardly a month after a trademark lawsuit filed in the appeals court against Google's keyword sales, another suit has surfaced in Texas. Search engine titan Google is slammed with a new lawsuit for allowing companies to use competitor's trademarks  to trigger their pay-per-click ads. Firepond, a software company in Texas, on Monday filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court in the eastern district of Texas, against Google alleging its AdWords service profits by selling keywords bearing a company's trademark to its competitors.

Firepond, a small software selling company, based in Marshall, Texas, has sued Google, alleging that its AdWords system infringes its trade marks. The plaintiff claims that consumers are “duped into clicking through to a competitor's sponsored link” when they search for Firepond and are served ads for another company.

A corresponding lawsuit involving PC support company Rescuecom was brought back to the forefront in April by an appeals court after initially being dismissed in 2006. If the case gathers enough participants, the suit could cost the search giant dearly.

Scott talks with Eric Goldman. he's an associate professor at the Santa Clara University School of Law and Director of the High Tech Law Institute.