Feb 21

Written by: James Burke
Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Abel & Imray – www.patentable.co.uk

Keyword Misuse

Misuse of Intellectual Property on the Internet not only involves theft of trademarks by counterfeiters or theft of copyright by pirates trading in fake goods, it also involves theft of IP via metatags by domainname pirates.

“A common problem faced by famous brands is the purchase of competitors of search engine keywords which match those brands” says Simon Bentley, Partnet at Abel & Imray

When users search for famous brands these keywords trigger the appearance of the competitors websites in the list of sponsored links – which sometimes appear more prominently that the brand owners actual website.

Main search engines such as Google and Yahoo have developed complaint procedures that are effective in targeting this type of abuse and often all that is needed are a series of letter to competitors to get then to cease using keywords that infringe a businesses trademark.

Tags: