New Utah Law Impacts Keywords Buying
A new Utah law has just been passed that will allow companies in essence to trademark keywords. Thus not allowing competitors to bid against the company in online advertising. The story is here.
The state of Utah has passed a bill that could impact the practice of buying competitive keywords, reports Search Engine Land.
Some search engine marketers buy up keywords associated with the copyrighted terms of their competitors. Utah’s Trademark Protection Act would make that practice illegal.
The bill creates an “electronic registration mark” as a new form of trademark. Registering that mark will cost $250 but once done a competitor may not use that term to trigger advertising.
The bill will almost certainly face legal challenges. Previous federal rulings have found that use of competitive keywords in search marketing is allowed under trademark law.
This allows companies to trademark phrases on the internet and not allow anyone else to bid on them for advertising. This law will most definitely run up against legal opposition. If allowed to stand people will probably run out to “trademark” all kinds of keywords in order to tie them up. I think just let competition take its coarse and let the best company’s advertising win. Allowing the law to stand will just hinder internet advertising and business on the net more than it will benefit those that the law protects. Only time will tell whether the law will stand, but I hope that it doesn’t.
Campman.com, internet, keywords buying, utah
Written by admin on April 4th, 2007 with
no comments.
Read more articles on internet.
- [+] Digg: Feature this article
- [+] Del.icio.us: Bookmark this article
- [+] Furl: Bookmark this article
