A few days ago, I wrote a page on Pareto’s new definition in employee relationship management, an approach that is followed by Google Inc. In the following entry, I would like to highlight how Trademark Violation was dealt by Google and my understanding Google’s attorney’s trialroom prowess, incorrectness in twisting the story and eventually stepping out of the trial room as Don’t be Evil organization.

Geico Insurance had sued Google for letting other insurers (competitors to use Geico as a AdWord in their text-based advertisements). This approach will lead any user searching for Geico in the search box to see other insurers on the Sponsored Link section of the result page.

A potential customer who uses Geico as a keyword in Google.com would probably have two reasons

• To be able to get on to Geico’s website (doesn’t remember the URL directly)
• To be able to understand Geico and its competitors from some review portals/sites/etc. (To ensure, an informed decision is made before buying an insurance)

Google’s attorney had smartly focused on the second reason and managed to elude smoothly from the case. As smart as it may seem, the defense is absolutely incorrect as far as I am concerned.

A few years ago, I read an article that said Microsoft had lodged a complaint against an individual who had registered msoffice.com and managed to win the domain name back. Cybersquatting, as all of us would know is quite rampant on domain name registration. After hearing the case from Microsoft, Internic had revoked the right from the individual who registered the name and handed it over to Microsoft. Now, if I were to overlay this story on top of the aforesaid lawsuit by Geico, Google Inc is no different from the individual who got sued by Microsoft on misusing naming/trademark rights.

Despite of all the mess, Google had closed the case with an epilogue that stated a few measures that would be taken to avoid such abuse in future, but I doubt it would have any efficient mechanisms in place. (Exercise: Search for Geico & MetLife in Google [Open two windows] and focus on Sponsored Links)

If I were Google (truly a Don’t be Evil organization) and were to think aloud, I would have a look up table housing all possible Trademarks in the world, I will let organizations to register the Trademarks by providing sufficient supporting materials. Once done, if any one is trying to advertise on Google’s adwords, the chosen keywords will be checked against the lookup table and the system will warn in case of any misuse – This approach is quite achievable, though not highly efficient. But what the heck, something is better than nothing!

By having this system in place, Google Inc is also fairly protected against getting sued every now-and-then. If you feel like suing Google for trademark abuse, ensure your trademarks other patented materials are indexed in their look-up repository first!

I hope to see protect.google.com a secured webpage page in Google that would let lead me to

• login with my google account handle
• allow me to punch in a set of words
• provide online links to my Trademark/Patent registration sites

Once provided, a system that

• cross check with the aforesaid government websites on trademark/patent registrations
• generate a unique identifier (reference code equivalent)
• send a mail off to me to submit supporting materials to prove my claim
• once qualified, enusre the list of trademark/patented terms are indexed in the repository
• when an adverstiser is bidding for keywords that has one or more of the indexed trademarks, warn him against the same
• if he is the owner of the trademark, use the email address & the reference keys to let him index the keywords for adverstisement
• live happily ever after..

Next, what should the Hilton Hotel in Paris should do to protect their interests? Aren’t there brands in this world that can be so easily abused without worrying about any sort of Violations?

Consider naming your daughter Apple!