How to Conduct a Spot Check for Infringement of Your Trademark

We are always amazed at how often competitors of our clients attempt to use our clients' own marks against them in either pay-per-click advertising or in the html code of their sites.

Often this can be somewhat innocent - competitors do not realize that it is against the law to use another's trademark to divert consumers away from their web sites. Often it is not so innocent - they do realize it and think they cannot get caught.

Well, if you ever want to make sure your competitors are not using your trademarks against you visit Google, Yahoo!, or Bing and type your trademark into the search field. Click submit and see what comes up.

If "sponsored" results come up for your competitors' ads they may be bidding on your trademarks as keywords in their pay-per-click advertising. They can be stopped as this is against the law.

If "non-sponsored" or "organic" results for your trademark bring up your competitors you may wish to click on their site and then using the right button on your mouse click "view source code". This will bring up the html source code for the web site you are viewing unless they employ a blocker. Once you are looking at the source code a quick Ctrl F will find your trademark in their code if it is there. If it is, they have to remove it. It is the law.

As always, if you find improper use of your marks and have questions as to how to Enforce Your Marks just give us a call or shoot us an email. We're glad to help.

The Trademark Company