The AdWords which could give you a criminal record
In 2012 the Olympic Games are coming to London. They bring one of the most strict and heavily enforced set of trademark restrictions, sponsorship and marketing rule sets in the world.
Brand bidding on Adwords is ok, rules EU in Interflora vs M&S case
On the way into the office today I noticed a bunch of tweets along the lines of ‘Interflora wins EU PPC case vs M&S’.
I have just read the ruling in full, and I don’t interpret it as a win at all, but there are some key takeaways that you need to be aware of if your brand is involved in bidding on competitor trademarks.
ECJ: AdWords buy is trademark infringement
In 2009, the British High Court was asked to weigh in on the long-standing dispute between Interflora and Marks and Spencer, which centered on Marks and Spencer’s bidding on ‘Interflora‘ as a Google AdWords keyword. It referred the matter to the European Court of Justice (ECJ).
The Advocate General ECJ has finally answered: Marks and Spencer violated Interflora’s trademark.
Google changes its trademark policy (again!)
Google has announced changes to the way in which it deals with trademarks and Google AdWords at a press conference this morning.
In a move which brings the UK in line with its US policy, advertisers will now be able to include trademarked words and phrases in their Google ads without the trademark owners permission.
Hundreds of top-level domains? One big headache for businesses
ICANN, the private, non-profit governing body that oversees, amongst other things, the domain name system, is mulling a plan that would accelerate the introduction of hundreds of new top-level domains (TLDs).
Under the plan, companies and organizations wanting to run their own TLD may be able to express interest in doing so as early as the middle of this year.