Stopping People From Bidding On Your Trademark – At Least On Google Adwords

by Jeremy Schoemaker on November 1, 2007 · 67 comments

Sometime last year I got our attorneys working on filing to trademark several things that we hold. Every thing from ShoeMoney to clickshield to nextpimp and other items.

On September 25 2007 we received notice from the United States Patent and Trademark office that our trademark for SHOEMONEY had been approved:

Now we could always legally have gone after people who infringed on our trademark but one thing that always bugged me was the PPC Trademark bidding. Everytime I did a search for ShoeMoney all these jerk off companies would come up that were trying to make a buck off of my brand and that bugged me. (I am such a hypocrite at the same time as I do a lot of trademark bidding on the other end).

So now that we got our shiney new registered trademark I thought I would give it a test run and file with Google. I filled out this form and today I received this from the Google Adwords Team. (still waiting to hear from Microsoft and Yahoo but really do they matter? )

Its cool when you fill out the Google Adwords form for your trademark because you can give it Google Adwords Account ID’s that you give permission to use your trademark (like mine).

From: “Google AdWords Trademark Team”
Date: November 1, 2007 4:13:04 PM CDT
To: jeremy@shoemoney.com
Subject: Re: Google AdWords Trademark Complaint processed – SHOEMONEY

Hello Jeremy,

Thank you for sending us your trademark complaint letter. Your complaint
has been processed and the ad texts in question no longer include your
trademark: SHOEMONEY.

Please note, we only processed the exact trademark you submitted. If you
would like us to investigate variations or misspellings of your trademark,
please supply us with a list of the exact variations or misspellings and
we will review them.

Please do not hesitate to contact us with any additional questions or
concerns.

Best Regards,

Google AdWords Trademark Team

And now as you can see below only my Adwords account is able to bid on “shoemoney”

About the author...

Jeremy Schoemaker – who has written 2414 posts on ShoeMoney.com.

Hi I am Jeremy Schoemaker and ShoeMoney.com is my blog. 99% of the post here are done by me but you will see others occasionally make guest posts. This blog is fun to write but for my day job I run several online companies.

Images provided by ShutterStock

Mark recommends you read these posts also:

{ 62 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Hustle Strategy November 1, 2007 at 4:21 pm

Nice. hypocrite… The rss seems to be growing leaps and bounds…

2 Ron Channon February 21, 2009 at 3:48 pm: I am picking up this thread following a gap of some 14 months,however, I hope it creates some ongoing interest.
Like ‘Shoemoney’ my company with the Reg trademark ‘Golfplan’ was also subject to trade mark scamming throughout 2007 and early January 08. I also complained to Google that same month and received exactly the same reply, it was subsequently removed from two competitors sites by Google themselves.
Great, two months later Google announce they will allow bidding on competitors trademarks and the same competitors are back listed on Sponsored links directly above my No 1 organic position where I have been for the last 10 years!!
My company markets golf Insurance within the UK see http://www.golfplan.co.uk I understand trademark bidding has been declared legal in the USA, but is it legal under English Law? I cannot believe any UK Judge would give it approval, so maybe it is just a matter of time before someone tests it in The British Law Courts.
I have personally thought about being the first but I have no doubt it would prove very costly, and if I won it would be my financial loss and everyone elses FREE gain!! Maybe I should look for a ‘No Win, No Fee’ Lawyer ? RFC7

Reply

3 LeGo November 1, 2007 at 4:21 pm

Now you can pimp yourself?

4 Neon November 1, 2007 at 4:35 pm

nice.. the real advantage is to block other people from bidding your trademark.
there is no point for you to bid on the term shoemoney since you are already top of the result

5 Domtan November 1, 2007 at 4:53 pm

Congratulations on the Patent Jeremy. Laminated it. Looks nice.

6 Catherine L November 1, 2007 at 4:56 pm

Well done Jeremy. It was a smart thing to do as your Adwords campaigns will cost a whole lot less when you don’t have a heap of competition for your own name.

I have been looking into trademarking, but it also takes several months over here. And we can’t actually stop anyone using our name unless they were using our logo, or trying to pass themselves off as us.

7 JohnMu November 1, 2007 at 5:01 pm

Congratulations on the trademark! Now log into Google Webmaster Tools and also get your 2 bad sitelinks removed

8 Worknplay November 1, 2007 at 5:01 pm

congratulations!

9 JoeTech.com November 1, 2007 at 5:19 pm

Congrats. I know the process can be pretty costly, having done a few myself, but I also know it feels great to have it done and know your name is secure.

10 Burgo November 1, 2007 at 5:35 pm

Just because you’re the top result isn’t a reason to completely neglect the paid search stuff, in my opinion.

11 Simon November 1, 2007 at 5:46 pm

Good for you, I don’t know how much your trademark application cost? But good for you anyway.

12 Ian Lee November 1, 2007 at 5:52 pm

Hey, Google began policing trademarks again? I remembered working with their legal team way back when and they helped us monitor and removed trademark in AdWords. I thought they did away with this service? Guess it’s back! Nice.

13 David November 1, 2007 at 5:58 pm

Yeah, but you wont be protected for ‘shoe money’. Thats also a keyword with a lot of volume

14 gambit32 November 1, 2007 at 6:02 pm

Nice! I remember you talking about doing this last year!

15 krillz November 1, 2007 at 6:06 pm

Cool man, I bet some people will have some sad faces when they find out that they can’t bid on the term shoemoney anymore. It will be like, what the hell just happend

16 krillz November 1, 2007 at 6:09 pm

yeah well, he will be at the top of google for his own brand, even if the others have way better seo practices applied to their sites, it just how google magically works.

….hey who is that… arghhh ! google agents… noooooooooooooo!

17 safesurfer November 1, 2007 at 6:13 pm

I’ll second this question. Would you mind giving us a ballpark figure, shoe?

18 Jason Rodriguez November 1, 2007 at 6:30 pm

Interesting how shoemoney.com holds both the first, and second search results.

19 Alex November 1, 2007 at 6:38 pm

If this makes you happy, so be it. A “good” trademark lawyer will charge you $5k. For something that takes 45 minutes to research and file. If anyone is looking to trademark, I would recommend that they do it themselves for $200. If your application gets rejected then I would encourage you to seek a lawyer and pony up the cash. I went through this exercise a couple of years back and found that yes it is nice to have a nice legal certificate from the USPTO, but on the other hand was it worth it? Hmmm, maybe or maybe not.
If you are willing to spend thousands of dollars in legal fees I would argue that a certificate reflecting a Patent would be much cooler to have.

20 ShoeMoney November 1, 2007 at 7:08 pm

sure I will find out

21 ShoeMoney November 1, 2007 at 7:09 pm

actually with the way the matching works people broad matching money or shoe would match so it would not work

22 The Foo November 1, 2007 at 7:42 pm

correct me if I am wrong here — what i understand with trademarks is that someone else can come up and use the same name if they can prove that they are using it for another purpose either than the category you registered for. so basically multiple people can have/ use the name shoemoney if it is used for different purposes — unless of course you go ahead and trademark every possible use/ purpose/ situation for it. which may run you into tens or hundred of thousands.

again — correct me if i am wrong but that is how i interpreted it doing research on the web.

23 The Foo November 1, 2007 at 7:44 pm

what i understand with trademarks is that someone else can come up and use the same name if they can prove that they are using it for another purpose either than the category you registered for. so basically multiple people can have/ use the name shoemoney if it is used for different purposes — unless of course you go ahead and trademark every possible use/ purpose/ situation for it. which may run you into tens or hundred of thousands.

again — correct me if i am wrong but that is how i interpreted it doing research on the web.

24 ghoti November 1, 2007 at 9:08 pm

Sorry to deflate your bubble, but there’s a John Chow ad now appearing when you search for “shoemoney”…

25 ghoti November 1, 2007 at 9:12 pm

^^ Screenshot of above: http://i12.tinypic.com/4drgoz4.jpg

(I’ll be pausing/deleting the ad later tonight…)

26 Hustle Strategy November 1, 2007 at 9:14 pm

lots of big companies tend to agree. ebay being one.

27 John M Weaver November 1, 2007 at 9:32 pm

Can I tradmark ShoeMoney jr. and not get sued?

28 John M Weaver November 1, 2007 at 9:38 pm

I just saw the update…nice catch ghoti. That sucks it is still posting other ads.

29 LeGo November 1, 2007 at 9:49 pm

those two are great…

30 Hustle Strategy November 1, 2007 at 9:50 pm

Great little soap opera these two have going on…

31 ghoti November 1, 2007 at 10:06 pm

Just to clarify, John Chow didn’t put up that ad…I did. It was just to show that people can still bid on the keyword “shoemoney”.

What Google did for Jeremy was to prevent anyone from using the trademark ShoeMoney in the ad text. That’s why the email from Google says: “the ad texts in question no longer include your trademark: SHOEMONEY”. But Google does not prevent anyone from bidding on trademarks in the US or Canada.

The AdWords trademark policy is outlined at http://adwords.blogspot.com/2006/12/adwords-trademark-policy-part-1-of-2.html

32 Richard Ball November 1, 2007 at 10:09 pm

FYI, other advertisers can bid on your trademarks (in the US and Canada). What they can’t do, though, is used your trademarks in the ad text. That should result in a lower Quality Score, so their minimum bids should be higher, if that’s any consolation.

See: http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=50006

33 Blog Contests November 1, 2007 at 11:55 pm

Good point dude!

34 Cyrus L November 2, 2007 at 12:21 am

I realize you don’t have much experience with trademarks, but filing for an application has relatively little to do with an actual hold of the mark through use in commerce. I have extensive litigation experience with this through my domain name dealings. Basically, anyone can file a TM for anything they want. Proving it to be applicable is an entirely different story.

For example, Apple probably has a TM for the word “apple” but people still sell granny smith apples and red delicious apples. People just can’t sell computers called Apples or anything in the gray area that would confuse consumers assuming the mark is neither descriptive nor generic. So, your registration at the USPTO has relatively little to do with your exclusive rights to the PPC terms but it’s not a bad first step to protecting the mark.

35 lyricsreg November 2, 2007 at 1:31 am

If you cross your fingers, you might

36 $1000 Dollar Project November 2, 2007 at 3:07 am

What was the minimum cpc on shoemoney before to get the number 1 spot?

37 1000 Dollar Project November 2, 2007 at 3:56 am

what was th minimum cpc on shoemoney before this for the number 1 spot?

38 Stuart November 2, 2007 at 5:14 am

You can still bid on it by bidding broad

39 Chis November 2, 2007 at 5:35 am

Usually the bid will be next to nothing for your trading name anyway (because of quality score), even if you don’t block other bidders you can pay 5p p/c to be top while the person at number 2 could be paying £1.50

40 corey November 2, 2007 at 7:27 am

that clickshield layout is a+

41 VaBeachKevin November 2, 2007 at 8:13 am

That what I thought. As long as you don’t use the trademarked term in the ad copy you can still bid on that keyword.

42 andrew November 2, 2007 at 8:39 am

Where does it say that they can’t bid on your trademark? “Your complaint
has been processed and the ad texts in question no longer include your
trademark: SHOEMONEY.”

It was my understanding that you could only prevent others from using your trademark in their ad text.

43 andrew November 2, 2007 at 8:41 am

yea and ebay has a multi million dollar ad budget. Why cannibalize your organic listings when you are dominating the first 3 spots.

44 Gecko Tales November 2, 2007 at 10:58 am

I will add this to my arsenol of weapons when I need it.

45 jim November 2, 2007 at 12:17 pm

They’ve done studies that show both ctr’s improve when you have both the paid and organic results appearing high. By they’ve I mean some random blog I read, but it was pretty reputable.

46 jim November 2, 2007 at 12:18 pm

If it’s a trademark/service mark and you dont’ have it in your ad text, then they won’t let you big on the keyword for relevancy reasons.

47 Backlink Checker November 2, 2007 at 12:31 pm

Its great to know
btw you also got approved for your other trademarks like nextpimp?

48 Web Hosting Reviews November 2, 2007 at 4:28 pm

Even though it has already been shown that this won’t prevent someone from bidding on “Shoemoney” as a keyword, it’s still a good tip, as it does ensure that their quality scores will decrease, and the relevance of their ads will be lower (less likely to get a click from a user). Still a decent tip.

49 serge November 2, 2007 at 4:33 pm

dang

50 Neon November 2, 2007 at 5:15 pm

you are right. i totally forgot about the quality score.

51 urbanread November 3, 2007 at 9:48 am

The first thing that comes to mind after reading this post is to search google and see to that google does not display any of the ads on the right.Yes I did verify myself.

52 Ventrilo November 4, 2007 at 11:24 am

Hey Shoe, how much does filing a trademark cost?

53 ms danielle November 4, 2007 at 1:05 pm

congrats! this is one instance i am happy that the trademark policy is being enforced!

54 motorsportBABESau November 5, 2007 at 9:48 pm

Ha ha! Very clever. Well done.

55 Cheri November 5, 2007 at 11:54 pm

Good to know that Google respects trademark protection. Including legal fees trademark application runs around 1100-1500.

56 chetan November 6, 2007 at 2:39 am

Wow so no sponsored ads in google when i search for your trademarked “Shoemoney”

Congrats for that Jeremy!

57 John M Weaver November 6, 2007 at 6:36 pm

Looking good on this issue tonight! The only ad I am seeing is you Shoe!! Did you contact John to have him pull the ad or did Google take care of it?

58 Tony Smith November 8, 2007 at 2:50 pm

I’ve been wondering if I could get the name of my webcomic copyrighted somehow, especially since I own the domain name as well. Hmmm….this is food for thought. Thanks.

59 Matt November 17, 2007 at 9:43 pm