Violation of trademark - what are my options?

We have found competitors that are using our trademarked product name as part of their AdWords keyword phrases. This happened in 2003 and we filed a complaint with Google along with proof of our registered trademark. They promptly removed the ads from the competitors account.

This year they claim the following:
"Please note that we have recently ceased monitoring all keyword requests for U.S. and Canadian trademarks. As a result, we will not be able to monitor ads that are using your trademark term as a keyword in advertisers' AdWords accounts."

I am not asking them to "monitor" anything. I monitor the ads. I would just like them to remove those that are clearly in violation when I report them.

I am probably stuck with having my lawyer contact each competitor individually.

Anyone have any alternatives?

I just found this http://www.google.com/tm_complaint_adwords.html and I will be submitting the required information on company letterhead to Google and then we'll see.

Sorry for answering my own post. If I would have just settled down a bit I would have found this information and not bothered the forum, but perhaps it will be of use to others.

I am glad that you posted this. Thanks.

Sometimes the most educational posts are ones where people do just what you did: post out of reaction to something.

BTW.. I'm willing to bet Google may not 'monitor' for XYZ Company's trademark, but they will monitor for Google's trademark. ;)

Well I faxed in the required data on company letterhead yesterday. This evening I get an email from Google stating the exact same thing as the one that I received in the first place.

Here's the part of the policy that I want them to act on, "When we receive a complaint from a trademark owner, we will only investigate whether the advertisements at issue are using terms corresponding to the trademarked term in the advertisement's content. If they are, we will require the advertiser to remove the trademarked term from the content of the ad and prevent the advertiser from using the trademarked term in ad content in the future. Please note that we will not disable keywords in response to a trademark complaint. In addition, please note that any such investigation will only affect ads served on or by Google."

I want them to act on the first green statement above, but doesn't the second one say the opposite? Or, is it saying that they will not remove the keywords entirely from their system?

Anyway, I responded to the email and asked them about the first green statement above. We'll see what happens next...

I read it as saying they will allow the advertiser to continue their ads, but will require the trademarked term be removed from those ads. That's different from stopping the advertiser entirely.

This discussion is interesting as it involves adwords. But how does google handle complaints when the site is included in the organic listings?

That'd be fine with me. I hope that they read it that way.

If you mean when the trademark is included in the organic listings, I think that they will take no action. Here's what's on their AdWords Trademark Complaint Procedure page:

"Please note: The following procedure applies only to the use of terms that may be trademarks in advertisements, which are clearly marked as sponsored links on our results pages. We do not take action on objections to the use of trademarks in sites that appear in our search results, i.e., the left-side of a results page. For any such objections, please contact the site owner directly."

The organic listings will not be addressed by Google since those come from the site's content and not a sponsored link ad.

They will remove pages from the index if they receive a valid DMCA complaint. I wonder if one could claim copyright infringement when it is actually trademark infringement?

Just received this today:

Thank you for your email. Please note on our Trademark Procedure website (www.google.com/tm_complaint_adwords.html) under Trademark Rights in US and Canada we state, "Please note that we will not disable keywords in response to a trademark complaint." In your request received yesterday, August 9th, you state that, "The following specific advertisers show up in AdWords results when "bidrank" is the keyword." Therefore, as you are requesting us to prevent specific advertisers from using your mark as keyword, we will not be able to process your request. However, if you would like to submit a request regarding ad text under our policy, please refer to www.google.com/tm_complaint_adwords.html#1 for details on how to submit a complaint.

So, it appears that they will allow anyone to use other's trademarks as keywords as long as the trademark does not appear in the ad itself. That doesn't make sense to me.

I understand their position beacuse the ad doesn't contain the trademark. It's common to target a competitor's name or product to try to drain some traffic from them. I'm not saying it's ethical, but it is done.

Unfortunately, I think your next step may be a chat with a trademark lawyer to see if this is really trademark infringement.

Here's how Google justifies it in their final response (sorry it's long):

Thank you for your reply. I understand your concern. However, our policy is that we do not monitor the use of trademark terms as keywords for US and Canadian trademarks.
As you know, Google is dedicated to providing the most relevant advertising available for our users, advertisers, and publishers. Our thinking behind this policy is to provide our users with greater access to that relevant information. We do not think trademarks should cut back on the number of options available to consumers, but should help them differentiate various products and services. Therefore, our policy aims to provide our users with more choice while at the same time mitigate potential confusion as to the origin of the ad. At the same time, our policy of investigating and disabling trademark violations in the ad text reduces potential confusion as to the origin of the ad. As a result, if you would like for us to monitor the use of your trademark terms in the ad text, we will be more than happy to do so.
Finally, we do not believe that Google should be in the position of arbitrating trademark disputes between advertisers and trademark owners.As stated in our Terms and Conditions, advertisers are responsible for the keywords and ad text that they choose to use. Accordingly, we encourage trademark owners to resolve their disputes directly with the advertisers,particularly because the advertisers may have similar advertisements on other sites.

So, what Google enforced two years ago they now ignore. On I go to the lawyer $$$.

But first, I am going to search for that Plymouth Road Runner that I've always wanted and see if Google gives me some Chevy ads.

Did you ever have any luck with this? I still see your keywords being used, so I'm guessing not. We're in the same boat, so I'm wondering what does / does not work in getting the infringement stopped.

The purpose of having a trademark is to prevent others from trading on your mark. It seems to me that by selling advertising using your mark, and displaying these ads using your designated mark, Google is clearly in violation.