So you have just trademarked your business name with Google. Nobody can appear against your brand anymore right?!

Well, not entirely.

Googles trademarking policy and system in many cases seem very easy to manipulate. Those advertisers who want to display adverts against a (competitors) trademark often just need to try variations of the trademark term as keywords, so that they trigger an advert to appear upon search for the trademark term due to broad match.

Advertisers can submit a number of trademark search term variances to avoid competitors or naughty affiliates bidding against these terms, but it seems not every variant can be covered due to broad match triggering keywords against the trademark.

Google cannot then remove these adverts from the search results as the advertiser is only bidding on a term that is not a monitored trademark term with Google.

So, is there a conflict in Googles trademark procedure? Google explains

“When we receive a complaint from a trademark owner, our review is limited to ensuring that the advertisements at issue are not using a term corresponding to the trademarked term in the ad text or as a keyword trigger.”

So using a variation keyword of a trademarked term that still therefore triggers an advert against a trademark is not a ‘keyword trigger’?

Presumably not.

Google goes on to explain “…please be aware that we do not take any action in situations where an advertisement is being triggered by non-trademarked terms even though the search query contains a trademarked term.”

Obviously there are exceptions to every rule as per Googles trademark procedure example, but in such cases on a trademarked company name, quite often from an advertiser who has repeatedly tried to advertise against the brand and probably has the term in a adgroup called ‘competitors’; you would think a little discretion could be used.

Certainly at the moment, Googles online trademarks can be deemed fairly irrelevant to an advertiser who is determined enough to spend a little time playing with broad matched variants.