More legalities: Taking of your company name in vain

Marketing Profs: Combating Trademark Infringement in Search: "the unscrupulous use of a competitor's trademarked terms is a murky business and contentious topic." This article specifcally addresses PPC advertising.

The three types of issues:
1. PPC ads that are triggered by your trademarks, but don't mention them.
2. PPC ads that do mention your brand.
3. PPC ads that are deceptive.

Searching for my company's brand name, I found the following on Google:

• Two companies offering used and/or rental equipment like we sell
• A business/stock info site offering info on our company
• A 'type 1' infringement for one of our less popular products
• Two directory services that I have paid/trial listings for our products, one that mentions our brand, one that doesn't.

In all, I'm not concerned about any of these. I've long-ago accepted PPC ads by used equipment vendors as legit. The ads by the directory services does tell me that I am competing with them for traffic directly, but that discussion is for another post coming soon.

Recently, one of our direct competitors was running a PPC ad that said "Looking for an alternative to X brand". My assumption is that ad was pulled by Google due to poor click-thrus. Ultimately, I think this may be the ultimate judge and protector.