PPC Trademark Infringement and How to Avoid It
PPC Trademark Infringement
PPC trademark infringement may not be something that is often considered when developing a pay per click campaign, but it is nevertheless a very important issue for your business to keep in mind. PPC trademark infringement can be best described as the act of bidding upon a trademark with the intent of profiting from the resulting increase in hits.
Approximately one fifth of all online searches involve trademarked products, be they Coke, Band-Aids, or an Aston Martin. It might seem like a lucrative idea to bid on their products, but unless you have trademark rights to them, it is against the law and not permitted. One PPC trademark infringement exception is Google, which allows advertisers to bid on trademarked products so long as they are not mentioned within your own ad copy.
PPC Trademark Infringement - Current Legal Stances
We've collected here a list of quotes from the big three professional pay per click companies: Google AdWords, Yahoo and Microsoft AdCenter. By being aware of the policies put in place by the company you are working with, you can avoid any PPC trademark infringement issues that might arise.
- Google AdWords: "Google takes allegations of trademark infringement very seriously and, as a courtesy, we're happy to investigate matters raised by trademark owners. Also, our Terms and Conditions with advertisers prohibit intellectual property infringement by advertisers and make it clear that advertisers are responsible for the keywords they choose to generate advertisements and the text that they choose to use in those advertisements."
- Microsoft AdCenter: "Microsoft requires all advertisers to agree that they will not bid on keywords, or use in the text of their advertisements, any word whose use would infringe the trademark of any third party or would otherwise be unlawful or in violation of the rights of any third party."
- Yahoo: "Previously, we allowed competitive advertising by allowing advertisers to bid on third-party trademarks if those advertisers offered detailed comparative information about the trademark owners' products or services in comparison to the competitive products and services that were offered or promoted on the advertisers' site.
In order to more easily deliver quality user experiences when users search on terms that are trademarks, Yahoo! Search Marketing has determined that we will no longer allow bidding on keywords containing competitor trademarks.
How to Avoid PPC Trademark Infringement
The best means of avoiding PPC trademark infringement are to be aware of the policies set in place by pay per click companies. When bidding on keywords, it is best to do so only on those that are non-trademarked terms, or those that belong to your own company. Comparisons to otherwise-owned brands can quickly lead to PPC trademark infringement problems, and so are also best avoided if possible.
Trademark Infringement in PPC - How To Protect Yourself
Just as it is important to avoid getting into trouble for PPC trademark infringement, it is equally, if not more important, to ensure that your competitors are not doing it to you. The best way is to conduct weekly or monthly search audits. While doing so, you must look over normal or "organic" search results as well as paid search results or PPC contextual ads.
You should look through the top thirty results of the search listings each time to make sure that competitors are not conducting major PPC trademark infringement campaigns against you. This might be time-consuming, but is extremely effective at alerting you to potential problems. When you identify these problems in the early stages, it can save you a lot of time and cost-related headaches.
Know Where You Stand
Get your FREE competitive analysis
