Trademark Complaint Procedures

As a provider of space for advertisements, please note that Google is not in a position to arbitrate trademark disputes between the advertisers and trademark owners. As stated in our Terms and Conditions, the advertisers themselves are responsible for the keywords and ad content that they choose to use. Accordingly, we encourage trademark owners to resolve their disputes directly with the advertisers, particularly because the advertisers may have similar advertisements on other sites.

As a courtesy to trademark owners, however, we are willing to perform a limited investigation of reasonable complaints.

Trademark owners may submit either a specific or general trademark complaint. A specific complaint means that we will investigate a trademark term(s) in specific advertisements only. The trademark owner is required to provide the exact URLs in question and we will not investigate the trademark in any other advertisements.

A general complaint means that we will investigate the trademark in all relevant advertisements. The trademark owner does not need to provide the specific URLs in question. However, if there are specific advertisers that are authorised to use the trademark(s), the trademark owner is required to provide the corresponding customer ID(s) or Login email(s).

Additionally, please note that our complaint procedure regarding the use of a trademark in ad text and as a keyword may differ depending on the country in which trademark rights exist.

Please note: The following procedure applies only to the use of terms that may be trademarks in advertisements, which are clearly marked as sponsored links on our results pages. We do not take action on objections to the use of trademarks in sites that appear in our search results, i.e., the left-side of a results page. For any such objections, please contact the site owner directly.

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Policy Change to the AdWords Trademark Complaint Procedure in the UK and Ireland

Please note we have made a policy revision that applies to complaints we receive regarding trademarks in the UK and Ireland. Beginning May 5th, 2008, we will no longer review a term corresponding to the trademarked term as a keyword trigger. However, we will continue to perform a limited courtesy investigation of complaints regarding ad text purported to be in violation of a trademark.

More information regarding this policy change is available here.

Trademark Complaint Procedure - Trademark rights in US, UK, Ireland and Canada

When we receive a complaint from a trademark owner, we will only investigate the use of the trademark in ad text. If the advertiser is using the trademark in ad text, we will require the advertiser to remove the trademarked term and prevent them from using it in the future. Please note that we will not disable keywords in response to a trademark complaint. In addition, please note that any such investigation will only affect ads served on or by Google.
If you are a trademark owner (or represent a trademark owner) and have an objection to an advertiser's use of a term corresponding to your trademark in ad text that is consistent with the foregoing, please fill out the following form:

Trademark complaint form

To submit your complaint online, complete the required fields and select the "Submit" button provided.
To submit your complaint via mail or fax, please complete the following steps:

Fill in all required fields on our online complaint form.
When finished, select the "Submit" button provided.
Finally, print the email confirmation and send it to one of the following addresses:

Google Ireland
Atn.: Advertising Legal Support Team
Gordon House
Barrow Street
Dublin 4
Ireland

Or via fax to: + 35315433448
Attn: Google Trademark Complaints

Or via email to ads-trademarks-uk@google.com

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Trademark Complaint Procedure - Trademark rights outside US, UK, Ireland and Canada

When we receive a complaint from a trademark owner, our review is limited to ensuring that the advertisements at issue are not using a term corresponding to the trademarked term in the ad content or as a keyword trigger. If they are, we will require the advertiser to remove the trademarked term from the ad content or keyword list and will prevent the advertiser from using the trademarked term in the future. Please note that any such investigation will only affect ads served on or by Google.

Furthermore, please be aware that we do not take any action in situations where an advertisement is being triggered by non-trademarked terms even though the search query contains a trademarked term. This stems from the fact that Google allows advertisers to use a broad matching system to target their ads. For example, if an advertiser has selected the keyword shoes , that advertiser's ad will appear when a user enters the word "shoes" as a search query, regardless of other search terms that may be used. So, the ad would show if the user entered any of the following search queries: "tennis shoes," "red shoes," or "Nike shoes." This system eliminates the need for the advertiser to specify individually the many different search query combinations that are relevant to their ad.

If you are a trademark owner (or represent a trademark owner) and have an objection to an advertiser's use of a term corresponding to your trademark as a keyword or in ad text that is consistent with the foregoing, please fill out the following form:

Trademark complaint form

To submit your complaint online, complete the required fields and select the "Submit" button provided.
To submit your complaint via mail or fax, please complete the following steps:

Fill in all required fields on our online complaint form.
When finished, select the "Submit" button provided.
Finally, print the email confirmation and send it to one of the following addresses:

Google Inc.
Attn: Advertising Legal Support Team
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043

Or via fax to: 650-649-1774
Attn: Google Advertising Legal Support Team

Or via email to ads-trademarks@google.com

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