Protecting your Trademark in Adwords

Apr 17, 2019

Adwords has a Trademark protection scheme that stops businesses from having Ads approved with trademarked text within the ad content itself. This is one of the reasons that Ads can become disqualified and is often followed by a warning about advertising such trademarks on the Google Adwords network.

If you notice that your trademark text is being used within an ad then you can file a complaint with Google about the use of your trademark and Google will investigate and may enforce certain restrictions on the use of the trademark in an Adwords ad. This worldwide policy can be enforced with only authorised parties being approved to use this text within ads, once they apply to Google for an exemption or you give them initial approval (ie resellers).

If your Ad Campaign targets an ad using a trademark and is disapproved, you can take further action by contacting Google to explain that either - 

1. The term in your ad did not reference a trademark.
2. That you should be authorised to use the term.
3. Are a reseller or informational site. 

In these cases, see Trademark Help for Advertisers.

One area where trademarks are not protected is in the use of trademarks in display URL text (website address links) so domain paths, subdomains and file urls can include this text.

You are also allowed to target and use any trademarked "keywords" in your Ad Groups to trigger one of your ads. So this allows you to target customers that are looking for a trademarked brand name, product or service, showing your ads for these trademarked search terms.

Counterfeit and Copyright issues are separate to trademark issues and should be dealt with using Googles complaint policies.

View the full Adwords Trademark Policy.

File a Trademark Complaint, asking Google to Investigate the usage.

If you would like to discuss issues with Trademarking and Google Adwords, please contact us for further advice.