AdWords Trademark Gripe

does contesting help

[chewy]

This seems to be a gripe that is not covered elsewhere.

Just ran into a generic 2 word phrase used in my US targeted ad copy that AdWords says is disallowed due to trademark issues.

Turns out no one has a TM on this according to USPTO, (it may be too general a descriptive phrase) and there appear to be no sites using a TM or R on this phrase that I can find.

One company does use it in their URL, but they are outside of our area and also make no R or TM claim on their pages.

Plus, when I go into "contest" the phrase, the interface does not indicate that the contestation has been logged, and the interface gives me little confidence that they even care about the contestation.

[Rehan]

Maybe Google will tell you who filed the trademark complaint with them if you tell them you need that information because you can't determine who it is and you would like to ask for approval for use of the trademark.

[chewy]

Adwords trademark complaint form seems focused on trademark owner - does the same form data get read by those who wish to contest?

-no owner is registered in US - the implication is anyone can claim as an owner?

One would think that Google would check this.

[eWhisper]

Chewy, I'm sure you didn't overlook this; but I'm going to archive it here as it's a common issue I see.

When talking trademarks, remember that you must abide by trademark laws for each country that you've set your campaign targeting to.

This means that if you have a campaign set to both the US and UK; the ad copy and keywords in that campaign must abide by the trademark laws of both countries.

There are times Google makes a mistake and you can ask for an exception as well.

[buckworks]

the ad copy and keywords in that campaign must abide by the trademark laws of both countries

In such cases it would make sense to have separate campaigns for each country.

That would let you abide by restrictions where necessary but advertise with full freedom elsewhere.

[chewy]

good point if we were doing this internationally.

we are not advertising in Ireland at this time.

the current campaign is US only.

[Yoshimi]

You say you're not advertising in Ireland at this time, I assume this means you were at one point, i thiswas recent could it be possible that the complaint was made by an Irish trademark holder, and has had a knock on effect on your US based campaign?

[chewy]

it is a brand new account, the so called trademark was disallowed on the creation of the advert which was US targeted.

We may at some point want to use it internationally, but at the first look, I just don't understand how they could call it limited by trademark, as there is nothing in the USPTO. Is there some other authority they are using that is more comprehensive than USPTO?

-- by the way, in follow up, a call to Google customer service did resolve the situation quite nicely - so the answer to my question has been resolved.