A lawsuit filed by NameSafe against LifeLock brought forth an interesting issue yesterday. Are trademarked names legally protected when it comes to online keyword advertising.
The lawsuitwas filed in the Middle District of Tennessee, where NameSafe is headquartered, and alleges various violations of Trademark Laws A NameSafe press release in which founder and Chief Executive David Ridings declared
“We have discovered that LifeLock has been sponsoring advertisements on most major search engines including (among others) Google, Yahoo, Lycos, MSN, Dogpile, and AOL, that deceptively led consumers to Lifelock.com. Specifically, when you searched ‘Namesafe.com’ in any major search engine, you found an advertisement that said ‘Namesafe.com’ but when you clicked on it, you were not directed to the official site for NAMESAFE (www.namesafe.com), but rather to our competitor, LifeLock.com.”
In an article on Namesafe, IdentityTheftLabs.com, an ID theft company pointed out that it was very common for an identity theft protection company to be bidding on the trademarked names of competitors until recently when LifeLock requested that competitors refrain from bidding on their trademarked names.
In a article by CNET LifeLock denied using the trademarked names of their competitors.
“We have contacted our reseller network to remind them of the importance of compliance with LifeLock’s requirements. We have been informed that a non-compliant reseller purchased the term ‘NameSafe.’ The reseller has subsequently been terminated. LifeLock will not tolerate violations of our compliance guidelines from any independent reseller.”
Can others bid on your trademarked name. This is the real concern from a legal standpoint and one we have to wait for the courts to decide upon.