Trademark Wars

Garret Cunningham | 11:14 am | April 16, 2008 | Google, News, Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

If you haven’t heard, Google has recently announced their plans to stop their trademark restriction and policing services.
This seems to have caused a massive stir and drama in the industry, which is somewhat understandable.
From a branding perspective companies want to protect their brand and regulate who is representing it.
On the other side when it comes to search engine marketing in my experience most companies find their Brand related keywords are the highest converters delivering the greatest ROI.
So no longer having full control over this space is a worry. But has this shocked advertisers and will it change the landscape for ever?
Well, I don’t think it should, In my opinion Google US is always a good indicator for how the UK will go. A perfect example being last years announcement of the end of Best Practice Funding, first removed form the US advertisers, now to be removed from the UK advertisers, and now Trademarks.

Search term trademarking privileges were removed from US advertisers a few years ago, now they are being removed from UK advertisers, I believe it is something advertisers should have expected at some point.
Although there are some major brands out there who may suffer, there are many smaller brands who won’t feel the impact quite so much and these larger brands could take a lesson or two…

With the various agencies I have worked with brands at both ends of the scale, those who are well recognized with all the trademarks in place, and those who don’t own the trademark on their brand, even without the trademark we have found ways and means to protect the brand.
The key is understanding the resources available and using them in the most appropriate way to protect yourself, and if all else fails, get the legal team on it!