My competitor is bidding on my trademark

[sdani]

Not sure after all these discussions that what's google's final policy was for allowing to bid on trademark. As far as I understood it, it is not allowed YET.

Just noticed that my competitor is bidding on my trademark. My trademark is "mysite.com" (including .com), and when I type mysite.com in google search, my competitor's ad shows up in google.

Don't know why would he advertise on my website's name. He gets 750k hits a month and I get 12K hits a month. He is the one who started this market and is doing it for 8 years now.. I just started few months ago. But anyway, I am happy .. our site is being noticed by competitors :)

<edit> never mind.. he is bidding on all website names listed in yahoo / dmoz. So, its not the fact that our site is being noticed by competitors.</edit>

SD

[edit_g]

If you're in the US you're out of luck May 15th (I think, around then, anyhow) - Google doesn't want to be the middleman anymore and is changing policy - so it will be a free for all on trademarks. Anywhere else these changes won't come into effect for a while longer - so just call or write Google and tell them to get rid of the listing. It is clearly infringing on your trademark.

The other thing you can do is write a registered letter stating your case to the company directors (and not att: the marketing department, find out the names of the company directors) and say that the next letter will be from your legal representative.

Hope that helps. I'm not a lawyer btw (not that you couldn't tell that I'm not, from that ramble, but I should probably say, just in case).

[nyet]

If you are serious, you should send a letter from the lawyer first....Having been on the receiving end of some of these letters, we tend to 'shrug-off' the personal "hey, can you please stop" letters. They betray weakness.

But all that said, If I were you, since *they* are getting 750k hits to your 12k, perhaps *You* should run their TM as a keyword. Seems like you have more to gain from doing so.

BIG FAT DISCLAIMER: I AIN'T NO LAYWER AND I KNOW NUTHIN' 'BOUT LEGAL STUFF SO YOU SHOULD NOT TAKE ANY OF MY ADVICE.....

[sdani]

Thanks for all the inputs, but at this point I don't think that if they bid on "mysite.com", that would harm me. Infact I don't see how would it benefit them. If someone goes to google search and searched for "mysite.com" then that person already knows about my site and he / she is not looking to buy anything at that point... he /she is probably just looking for my rankings / pages etc.

If my site is being discussed in Google groups (which is not the case), then his ad can harm me as people might go to his site from those discussions...but for now, I think its good for me. Although his site exists since 96, *we think* our technology is better and there is no harm if people click on both sites and compare them (and also increase his costs by clicking the ads ;) )

[Syzygy]

I mentioned this in another thread just a few days ago, but, my attitude is: good - please do advertise around my site, particularly if you are a bigger player.

All you do is help reinforce the name of my brand on the web and in the whole. Your support - as a bigger fish - in drawing attention to my name and site, and giving it your financial endorsement is marvelous. Please do continue.

Do I think that as a bigger player you'll take visitors away from me when and if they click on your ad? Maybe - occasionally. This is life, this is business, and particularly on the web.

However, by 'legitimising' the merit of my offering within the market, and by showing the rest of the sector that you perceive my site as an important competitor, pays me a big complement.

You can rest assured that we are not ungrateful for your attention, and in return will ensure that we bring your name to the attention of all our clients, existing and new, and tell them of the wonderful thing that you have done for us.

When potential clients - who may be unsure of our standing and value in the marketplace - hear of the good that you have done - by endorsing our site with your valuable marketing spend - we are confident that they will appreciate the gesture you have done on our behalf.

Thank you, competitor-friend, for your unfailing support of our business and its efforts!

Syzygy

[paybacksa]

from my experience people do in fact search for sitename.com in the search engines. You might not understand it, but it happens.

Some people have Google/Yahoo as their home page, and don't know much about the Internet. They start everything in the Google search box. You would be amazed (as I was) but they manage that way.