The plot thickens - slightly

Now you might have thought the Google trademark issue had just gone away especially when some of the protagonists of the major lawsuit backed away in the summer.

However, there were many who, when we wrote about it in our May edition, told us to watch this space especially post the summer downtime.

Low and behold, a statement from DialAFlight saying it is 'instituting legal proceedings against Flight Centre UK for infringement of its DialAFlight trademark on Google'.

Flight Centre says it has 'removed the phrase that says DialAFlight' but stresses it is not required to do so by Google and, perhaps more importantly, has not 'infringed any trademarks'.

Allegedly, this is not the first time DialAFlight has warned Flight Centre off - the brand, which is part of the Lotus Group, confirmed a similar incident last year.

So, the beast rears its ugly head once more and the coming weeks and months are likely to throw up more as competition on the internet intensifies and the peak selling period approaches.

What does it cost to institude legal proceedings - couple of hundred quid for a cease and desist letter? And is it all just sabre-rattling?

Linda Fox, lead reporter, Travolution