Trademark protection

[j1m805]

I ask this question with my merchant hat on - I've applied to Google to protect our trademarks and stop other sites (ebay, shopping comp etc rather than affiliates) hi-jacking potential traffic. However, 6 weeks later they still haven't applied it and follow-up emails are met with a "we'll get around to it" type answer, which to my cynical mind says "why would we be in any rush to cut off our income streams"

Does any one have any clues as to how long this process should take?

Thanks

Jim

[gadget]

I can't answer your question but perhaps a friendly letter from your legal team to their legal team may speed things up. Afterall, they are in breach of your trademark by allowing the trademark to be used on their website.

[tbp]

Suprising, seeing as they have so many banned words its ridiculous.

For instance, you can't use the word mini - granted its the trademark of the car manufacturer, but you can't use it even when it means small, as in "mini chocolate fountain". Also had problems with "cap" as in baseball cap.

I can understand banning competitors names, but only if they are unique and aren't common words/

[ian-d]

G, you sure you weren't running a campaign for "mini-skirts"

I beleive trademark applications take a very long time, but a legal letter stating they are in breech might do the trick.

Regarding your comment about stopping ebay rather than affiliates, i'm afriad putting a block on your trademark will affect all, not just ebay etc. However, its not 100% fool proof, you can still advertise some keywords, it just tells you they are protected, but they still show

[hpops]

You can apply for exceptions (basically give them a list of people who are allowed to bid) these might include distributors, affiliates, partners etc

[Magnus]

Originally Posted by j1m805 I ask this question with my merchant hat on - I've applied to Google to protect our trademarks and stop other sites (ebay, shopping comp etc rather than affiliates) hi-jacking potential traffic. However, 6 weeks later they still haven't applied it and follow-up emails are met with a "we'll get around to it" type answer, which to my cynical mind says "why would we be in any rush to cut off our income streams" Does any one have any clues as to how long this process should take? Thanks Jim

These things can take time, as you've noticed. Even with a TM ni place, as mentioned you're not guaranteed protection. Googles take on TM protection is that it's made out of courtsey to the advertisers, and not a legal contract so even when the TM in place you might have long turn-around to get offending ads blocked. Many times a letter from your own legal team to the offending merchant/competitor might do the trick quicker.

[kingoftherodeo]

It used to take 6 months, now its been reduced to three. Hang in there!

I know im a bit late answering this but hopefully it might help someone in the future

[gadget]

I agree that it's currently around 3 months.

[hero]

from my experience, it can take up to 8 months and that's if the merchant has all the legalities sorted by the time they contact Google about it.

[Garret]

From what I've heard from the guys at Google they only have a small team in the US that deal with all trademark complaints and requests. So there tends to be a bit of a bottle neck...

It normally takes around 3 months for things to get processed, but ive had requests processed, faster and slower

[Aspire]

I did this for the "day job" and it was a lot less than 3 months - Perhaps we were lucky. I'll have a look at my e-mails tomorrow and see how long it look and report back.

[j1m805]

Good news! The trademark protection kicked in on the 27th December (7 weeks after applying), just in time for the January Sale! Fairplay to the Google guys, they were very helpful and although they tend to take a while to reply they have even implemented the protection on miss-spells. Needless to say I'm getting a lot more traff, and hit budget in 3 weeks, even with it being 50% growth on last year!