We are a reseller of a consumer item. Recently one of our brands used a trademark complaint to have Google pull all adwords for their name. Now we can't market their products. We have a reseller agreement with them so I don't see how this is a trademark violation.
Is there anywhere to go with this? Is it simply at their discretion when and were we can use their name to market? Does anyone have any experience resolving this type of issue?
Thanks for any info.
Back in the ‘80s, when MACs first came out, all the McMotorolaians use to but a capital M with a circle around to emulate Motorola’s batwing Trademark, for internal memos, etc. only, and the legal dept. said to stop. If it did not meet the exact TM, they could not use it. And that was internal to Motorola only. When I was shipping disks for Motorola with their Trademark on them, I had to go to the art dept. and get a 1:1 and have a screen made up so that I could put the logo on the disk sleeves.
I’ll bet if you look in your agreement, it says they ALWAYS have the final say as to how their Trademark is used.
Google recently sent me some bullet points for a trademark infringement letter we are preparing for one of our clients.
One of the points is:
"If your site has an affiliate programme, state whether affiliates are permitted to use the trademark as a keyword or in their ad content."
So, presumably, there is some sort of mechanism for applying the trademark rules selectively.
Ultimately, it is up to the trademark owner whether they want to permit third parties to use their trademark.
For manufacturers who don't sell direct and rely on retailers there is little commercial reason to protect your trademark in this way.
However, in the case of products where there is a limited reseller chain the trademark holder may want all enquiries to come through their website and then be passed on to resellers. It gives them control of the advertising and it keeps their own CPC down.
Col
We've already contacted the trademark owner and this is the decision they've made. They've decided to do their own online retailing and (though not explicitly stated) treat online resellers as competitors. Now they're using their trademark to block our marketing abilities.
I found the following article interesting:
[news.com.com...]
Basically describes how NetFlix used online affiliates to build it's brand name and subsequently used trademark rights to block the affiliates marketing efforts.
Certainly a difficult situation for resellers. Do we need to get a trademark usage agreement before we invest in building a brand name for someone else? It seems so.
