https://www.bitsbook.com/2008/12/is-barring-trademarks-from-ads-a-kind-of-censorship/ Your Life, Liberty and Happiness After the Digital Explosion Sun, 20 Dec 2009 21:25:44 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.8.13 https://www.bitsbook.com/2008/12/is-barring-trademarks-from-ads-a-kind-of-censorship/comment-page-1/#comment-1241 Wed, 24 Dec 2008 19:05:09 +0000 http://www.bitsbook.com/?p=322#comment-1241 Very much the same problem as the use of the DMCA takedown process to stifle criticism.

]]> https://www.bitsbook.com/2008/12/is-barring-trademarks-from-ads-a-kind-of-censorship/comment-page-1/#comment-1239 Wed, 24 Dec 2008 00:24:52 +0000 http://www.bitsbook.com/?p=322#comment-1239 I suspect this policy could be problematic where the mark in question is generic or descriptive and thus not a valid trademark. Technically, a trademark cannot be generic or descriptive, however, this usually becomes evident / enforced when the individual in question is unable to register the trademark (e.g. the US Patent and Trademark Office rejects their application), or tries to sue another individual for infringement and loses in court. Sometimes individuals attempt to use generic or descriptive terms as trademarks as a defensive/anti-competitive move. For example, I could claim that I own the trademark “aspirin” for my acetylsalicylic acid-based pain killer. The USPTO would reject any of my attempts to register this trademark, and if I sued another company for marketing their acetylsalicylic acid-based pain killer as “aspirin”, I would undoubtedly lose the case. However, it seems that if Google does not examine the validity of the trademark claims, I would potentially be able to prevent any of my competitors from advertising their acetylsalicylic acid-based pain killer as “aspirin” on Google.

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