Copyrighted common words?

I got an email today

[sailorjwd]

I got an email today for disapproval of a campaign that has been running for months.

The word 'Technique' is apparently a copyrighted word?

This can't be possible can it?

[bobothecat]

Do you mean trademark?

Yes, there is a registered trademark:

[tess2.uspto.gov...]

[sailorjwd]

Sorry, yes, trademark.

I see the word is trademarked but it has to do with Horse Feed.

Doesn't infringement only occur when you have to word 'technique' in relation to horse feed then?

[sailorjwd]

Here is the story from Adwords support...

When someone complains about the use of a trademarked keyword G places the word or phrase in a database.

Apparently they periodically scan all ad text for hits on the trademark. G attempts to figure out the context of the ad and if context is related to trademark then violation is flagged. Seems their algo to figure out context needs some more brains.

My ad has to do with database design and programming techniques - not horse feed! :)

[bobothecat]

Perhaps you should email them and explain your case. The worst they could say is no... which is what they've already done - so you wouldn't be any worse off.

[ItsAllBallBearings]

we get these about 3 times a year. Its almost always on the most random words too. Seems like Google just decided to error WAY on the side of caution and to honor the trademarked holders requests.

Seems a bit paranoid to me, but we just modify the ad to something similar. A number of times, the new ad even outperformed the original!

[sailorjwd]

In case I didn't make it clear - my Technique ad text was approved with an apology.

[AdWordsAdvisor2]

One important thing to note is that we don't just honor any advertiser request for trademark enforcement, it has to be a valid trademark, and will almost always be context and region specific. So, there are some pretty general terms that are trademarks and are enforced within AdWords for very specific use case scenarios.

Ads should be reviewed with the specific trademark scenarios in mind and approved when appropriate. If your ad gets disapproved and the term cited doesn't seem appropriate for trademarking within your industry, please reply to the disapproval email. Like sailorjwd found, incorrect disapprovals will be fixed.

AWA2