Utah Passes Trademark Bill On Competitive Keyword Use

The Utah legislature has passed a Trademark Protection Act law preventing people from buying ads linked to terms that are also trademarks of others. Paid Search is beginning to get even more complicated!

Our clients live in a heavily regulated world already and we strongly suggest to them that they DO NOT buy the trade name of a competitor. Currently, under Search Engine guidelines, companies can buy certain keyphrases, if content exists on your site about said competitor. What is not allowed is to mention a competitors trademark in the ad itself (if the mention causes confusion to consumers).

The Utah legislature seems to be taking this to another level, in a more broad sense against ‘fair use’. As Danny Sullivan mentions this is most likely violating the Constitution. Are we approaching a time when we will have to worry about more general keyphrases like Apple, Digger, or Pipe?

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This entry was written by Heather and posted on March 27, 2007 at 7:43 pm and filed under Healthcare Search, Pharma Search, SEM, SEO, Search Marketing. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

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  1. By Utah Passes Brand Keyword PPC Law on April 13, 2007 at 4:39 pm

    […] Online posted a blog entry about a Trademark Bill passed in Utah recently. Although the post is a few weeks old and was mentioned elsewhere, I only […]

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