Protecting Brands Against Online Trademark Infringement Through Pay Per Click Advertising
The Internet offers a vast frontier for commerce. Unfortunately, by its nature, the Internet is ripe for unscrupulous third parties to entertain brand owners’ sales by misleading consumers into believing their products and services are associated with a well-known brand. Companies must be diligent in policing their brands online.
How pay per click advertising works
One of the ways diversion occurs is through pay-per-click advertising, or “PPC” as it’s known in the industry. A PPC campaign is set up by Google or another search engine to bid on certain keywords that match an Internet search query. In the first step, the user selects keywords and typically sets a maximum amount or cumulative budget for each keyword. The user then prepares a short ad for the search engine to display in the paid links or sponsors section of the search results when the keyword is searched. Search engines have changed the way these ads are displayed, so they are no longer limited to the top or right of the screen. If all goes according to plan, the user’s ad will redirect the browser to another web page where services and products are offered for sale. These products and services may have nothing to do with the brands used as keywords.
Trademark Infringement in PPC Advertising Significantly Hurts Brands
Because PPC campaigns are largely unpoliced on the Internet, they are particularly effective at entertaining brand owners’ sales by efficiently locating people interested in the brand and showing them ads in the top spots. of search engine listings. This can generate millions of dollars annually in diverted sales. This is a big problem for companies. And the problem is not limited to companies that engage in electronic commerce. All businesses that sell products or services under a brand name are at risk, even if they only have physical retail outlets.
In addition to diverted sales, brand owners face significant damage to their goodwill when diverted products and services are inferior to their brand equivalent. This is because the consumer is confused as to the origin of products and services and attributes their inferior quality to the brand owner. Worse yet, the brand owner is often unaware that this has happened and, as a result, is unable to take action to correct the confusion.
What should brand owners do to protect themselves?
A good first step is to register all trademarks and other trademarks. A trademark acts as a source identifier and can be a word, phrase, logo, slogan, or other identifier. Obtaining a federal registration provides the trademark owner with significant rights, including priority at the national level, which is very important in combating Internet infringement.
Next, the company needs to keep an eye on its brands by monitoring search engines to see what shows up in sponsored links as a result of PPC advertising or in organic ones when searching for the trademarks as keywords. Infringing use of trademarks in these advertisements must be addressed.
Under certain circumstances, trademark owners may request that Google and other search engine companies prohibit the use of the owner’s trademarks in their keyword suggestion tool or PPC ads. While litigation is ongoing and the question of whether search engine companies can be held liable for PPC advertising infringement is unresolved, it is best to create a record of repeated requests to search engine companies to stop to use trademarks in your PPC advertising programs. This puts search engine companies on notice, which can be useful later if litigation ensues.
Finally, if all of these steps fail to address the violation, it may be time to hire an attorney to file a lawsuit to stop the violation. Please visit our website for additional information on steps to protect trademarks and reduce trademark infringement.