Protect Your Trademark in Google, Yahoo & MSN
Have you done a search for your brand name recently? Do you know that competitors could be illegally using your name in their advertisements? Did you know that it’s in your hands to monitor for unauthorized use of your trademark and to take action?
Recently, 360Partners was hired by a Fortune 500 company interested in improving their search marketing. As part of the account set up, 360Partners analyzed their search account using our proprietary 101-point checklist. This checklist analyzes every aspect of a search marketing account and is intended to find areas for account improvement. One of the primary findings from the analysis was that several competitors were using the company’s trademark in their headlines and ads without consent.
Essentially, this is what was happening:
A prospective customer types in the “Alpha Brick” trademark into a search engine (Name changed to protect the identity of the company). The results page shows the following ad:
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Upgrade From Alpha Brick |
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Beta Brick Offers Low Cost Solution. |
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More Robust than Alpha Brick! |
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BetaBrick.com |
The company’s trademark was being violated. Competitors were using a compelling message to shape the conversation against the company and siphon them off to their site.
There is hope for “alpha brick.” Search engines require that advertisers agree to terms and conditions stating that the advertiser will not violate the trademark rights of others. The bad news is that enforcing such violations is a difficult task, and most of the burden falls on the owner of the trademark and not the search engines. Below is a quick summary of trademark policies in each of the top 3 search engines.
MSN/Bing
- Policy: Advertisers cannot bid on competitor keywords, use competitor terms in ad copy or any word that infringes the trademark of another company.
- Exceptions: Resellers, strictly information sites, and dictionary terms that are trademarks.
- How it is enforced: When a trademark is registered, MSN blocks the trademark keywords so that potential competitors cannot bring those terms into their system. However, if you are not registered, MSN is not going to monitor/enforce any trademark violations
Yahoo
- Policy: Advertisers cannot bid on competitor keywords or use competitor terms in ad copy and ad descriptions. Also, the content of the landing page cannot violate the trademark rights of others.
- Exceptions: Resellers and information sites that are not affiliated with any competitor.
- How it is enforced: Yahoo has a trademark information database. When a trademark is registered, they will monitor to ensure there is no trademark violation. If a trademark is not registered, they are not going to monitor or enforce any trademark violations.
- Policy: Currently, Google allows you to bid on competitor keywords. Google requires that all advertisers do not use competitor keywords in their ad copy & descriptions, but only enforce if you have a registered trademark inside their system.
- Exceptions: Resellers and informational sites, sale of components, replacement parts or compatible products corresponding to a trademark.
- How it is enforced: Google will only actively monitor trademark infringement if a trademark is registered inside of Google’s system.
360Partners recommends several best practices with regards to trademark infringement. Even if you are not using paid search as a marketing channel, you should still be proactive in following these suggestions to protect your brand.
- Register your trademark with each of the major search engines. Once registered, each of the engines has internal systems to protect trademark infringement. Many violations can be prevented by simply having your trademark registered.
- Be proactive in monitoring your trademark. Even if your trademark is registered, you should regularly check to ensure your trademark isn’t violated.
- Resolve disputes with both the search engine & the violating advertiser. The search engines are not third party arbiters. The responsibility largely falls on the trademarked company. One benefit of resolving the dispute directly is that the violating advertiser may be doing similar things in other marketing channels or engines.
360Partners has internal contacts at each of the 3 major search engines. If you’d like help registering a trademark, 360Partners would be happy to provide free assistance in securing the appropriate forms and submitting them to our internal resources. Please contact us at searchmarketing@360partners.com.
