Filing a Complaint with the Search Engines

Run a query in search engines for your trademarks; include your company name , products, services, and slogans. Start on Google and Overture because their paid listing results appear on numerous search engines and content sites. Are competitors bidding on your trademarks?

Important

A trademark is a word, phrase, symbol, or design that identifies the owner of the marked item. Company, product/ service, or domain names that are registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office will likely be easier to protect.

Before you fire off an email to your search engine media representative, you'll need proper documentation to resolve this in a timely manner. Even with the required data identified in the following bullets, it took me anywhere from a few days to over a month to receive responses from the various search engines' legal departments regarding my first client case. Regardless of how many times you report trademark infringement, be sure to include the following information in each letter to prevent any hold-ups.

• Your contact information: your name, company name, mailing address, phone number, email address

• The trademark(s) on which the claim is based, plus the registration information, if available

• Description of the trademark violation (i.e., the bidding on the trademark, or the use of a trademark in the ad listing copy)

• The company name(s) and URL(s) associated with the trademark violation

• Status of your communication with the trademark violator(s)

If you don't have your trademark registration number handy, you can get it from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (http://www.uspto.gov), assuming you filed for a federal registration in the United States. You can use the "SEARCH Trademarks" feature to access your registration information as well as preliminarily check the availability of a trademark you'd like to file (Figure 22.1).

Figure 22.1. To retrieve your federal trademark registration number or check trademark availability, go to the "SEARCH Trademarks" area of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office web site.

This is the core set of requirements search engines expect in a trademark infringement complaint. Because each search engine varies, review their policies to tailor your complaint accordingly (visit the book site at www.searchenginesales.com for the URLs). For example, you'll probably be required to include the legal statement they've created that asserts you're the trademark owner. You'll also need to find out if the complaint letter needs to be mailed, faxed, or emailed to their legal department.

Important

Agencies or lawyers representing trademark owners need to include their contact information plus a statement noting that they're authorized to represent the trademark owners .