To boldly go .. LOCOG prepares to take on AdWords

The Locogosaurus engages with the
Googleraptor in a fight to the death for,
er, the right to tale other people's money

Don't despair -- if you own a beloved trade mark but can't stop those dreadful folk at Google selling it to enemy aliens as an AdWord, watch this space and see whether someone else can, this being the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG).  According to the Kats' information,

"The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG) will crack down on brands that breach its advertising restrictions online, including bidding against trade mark terms on Google, in the run-up to and during next year’s Olympic Games.

LOCOG heavily restricts the use of specific trade mark terms such as “London 2012”, “Olympic” and “Paralympic” in any marketing activity by anyone other than its commercial partners. These include Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Visa. But competitor brands will be able to bid against these phrases on Google if the search engine maintains its current trade mark policy. For the past three years Google has allowed rival brands to buy trade mark terms.

LOCOG has yet to announce its formal online advertising policy ahead of the Games, but a spokesman told Marketing Week sister title New Media Age [which broke this story first] it was aware of Google’s trade mark rules. “We’re aware of the Google AdWords policy,” he said. “We take all attempts to ambush the London 2012 brand seriously and we deal with any incidents on a case-by-case basis.”

Since its decision to relax its rules, Google has come under fire from brands that say it’s breaking trade mark rules. However, last year the European Court of Justice (ECJ) said Google was doing no such thing [see the IPKat here, among other places]. Instead, in March this year the advocate general of the ECJ advised that it was advertisers themselves that should be found liable for trade mark infringement if they bought Google AdWords ads against rival trade marked brands [this sounds like the Interflora opinion, here].

Henry Ellis, Tamar associate director for social media, said brands must be careful if they associate themselves with the Games. “LOCOG and the Government are incredibly protective of the Olympic brand and would look to make an example of any advertiser that breaks their rules,” he said".

Thank you, veteran reader Lee Curtis, for the lead!

Source: "LOCOG to protect Olympic trademark search terms", by Will Cooper, Marketing Week, 11 May 2011