AdWords, handbags and law firms

The European Court of Justice ruled this morning that Google had not infringed the trademarks of Louis Vuitton and others by allowing others to buy their trademarks as keywords using its Adwords service.

There is a very detailed note on the background to the case and the judgement on the Society for Computers and Law site, but I am interested in just one element for now - how this applies to law firms.

Louis Vuitton brought the claim because sellers of couterfeit products are using Google Adwords to bid for the keyword Louis Vuitton. This meant that the Google search results for this keyword would display an advert for the counterfeiter's site in the "sponsored links" section (which is featured prominently at the top of the results).

This is bad for the brand for two reasons:-

1. it supposedly dilutes the value of their trademark and may mislead users into buying the counterfeit product instead of the genuine one; and
2. it massively increases the cost of the brand bidding on their own trademark in Adwords (see for example Interflora's statement on their blog in relation to their own case against Marks & Spencer for using "Interflora" as an Adwords keyword).

As a designer handbag brand, it is easy to see why this is a problem. However, surely it is not relevant to law firms?

At the moment I don't think it is that relevant. Law firms do use Adwords, but mainly to bid on generic keywords such as "conveyancing services" so that their adverts will appear in searches for those terms.

It is impossible to know for sure, but searching against a random selection of ten or so firms of different sizes didn't bring up any of the telltale "sponsored link" results which would show that they (or someone else) had bid on their names in Adwords.

This makes sense. After all if someone is searching for your firm by name then they will find it through organic search results unless there is a catastrophic problem with your site rankings. You wouldn't want to pay per click for it.

It is even less likely that firms will have bought their competitor's names. What are the odds that someone searching specifically for "Bodgeit & Scarper LLP" will see your firm in the sponsored links and decide to use you instead?

So is the Google Adwords problem just one for the handbag manufacturers?

Well, no. There is a new class of legal service provider who is going to be very vulnerable to this type of activity.

One of the many responses to the threat posed by the Legal Services Act 2007 is the creation of new "umbrella" brands under which law firms will group together and pool their marketing resources. The intention is to create a powerful and recognisable brand which can compete with Tesco, Halifax and other brands who may choose to enter the market.

These new players (let's call them "Top Solicitors" or "Activate Legal" for the sake of argument) are applying for trademark protection for their shiny new brands and are most definitely using Google Adwords to bid on them as keywords.

As these brands become more well known, what is to stop Bodgeit & Scarper LLP and their unscrupulous peers from bidding on "Top Solicitors" as an Adwords keyword so that they appear in the sponsored links in the results of a search for that term?

Under the terms of the ECJ judgement, Bodgeit & Scarper LLP will be able to do this provided that their advert enables an average internet user to see that Bodgeit & Scarper's services come from a third party and not "Top Solicitors".

By definition, those searching are looking for a solicitor (rather than having any loyalty to an existing firm) and if the advert looks attractive then maybe they will give it a click, diverting business from Top Solicitors and driving up their costs of bidding on their own trademark using Adwords.

This is the downside of building a brand. Law firms do need to do it, but once you start to swim with the big fishes, you need to spend a lot of time looking out for the sharks!