Up to now it has been possible for brands in the UK and Ireland to prevent competitors from bidding on Trademarked terms by submitting a Trademark complaint. Adwords have also always disallowed competitors from using trademarked terms in Ad text.

While Google are retaining the ban on Trademarks within Ad text, they are now lifting the ban on bidding on Trademarked terms – effective 5 May.

Basically this means that Pepsi will be able bid on the term “Coca-Cola”, but still wont able to use “Coca-Cola” in their advert (if Coca Cola have registered their trademark with Adwords, that is).

This is worrying news for those with brands to protect. Up to now many advertisers have saved money by not bidding on their brand terms. With no competitor PPC ads to distract them, searchers simply clicked on the top organic results – which should of course be the official site for which they were searching.

From now on brands will have to start bidding on their own trademarks or trust that searchers won’t be tempted by tantalizing offers from competitors.

More information about the new Adwords Trademark Policy here.