The US state of Utah has outlawed the use of other people’s trade marks to generate business through search engines. The plan has been called unconstitutional and impractical.
In creating a new kind of electronic trade mark with specific online protections, the state hopes to clamp down on one company buying the right to display search engine adverts when a person searches for a rival’s products.
Court cases across the US have largely backed the right of companies to purchase an association with a search for a rival’s products, though one state ruled that that term must not appear within the actual advert.
Google and Yahoo! operate the most popular search advertising programmes which display adverts related to the term typed into the search engine itself. The ads are displayed separately to the actual search results, which are unaffected by any company’s purchase of advertising space.
Under the Trademark Protection Act, trade mark owners can apply for additional protection in Utah which will mean that their marks cannot be used as a trigger by rivals. “This bill establishes a new type of mark, called an electronic registration mark, that may not be used to trigger advertising for a competitor and creates a database for use in administering marks,” says the Act.
The law “prohibits the use of a registered electronic registration mark to trigger advertising for a business, goods, or services of the same class as those represented by the electronic registration mark,” according to the Act.
Both the advertiser and the seller of the advert can be liable under the law.
The EFF’s McSherry said that the new law was not only impractical but also most likely unconstitional because of the strain it puts on inter-state commerce. “Aside from its constitutional flaws, the law is just bad public policy. It undermines the fundamental purpose of trademarks: to improve consumer access to accurate information about goods and services,” she said. “The good news is that, given the constitutional problems, the law is likely to be challenged in court.”
I can’t see why this would be impractical. All Utah needs to do is have their own internet, just for them, and isolate it from the entire rest of the world. This would be stupid but fairly simple.
I think I will use that as my new tag line ….
Improbus – stupid but fairly simple.
Wouldn’t it be hilarious if google’s response was to block the entire state of Utah from using their services? I know they wouldn’t…but damn it would be funny. And those politicians wouldn’t be too popular for very long.
Will someone please let this wacky state become its own country.
But… Google doesn’t sell Beer..
More unintelligent comments: You guys can’t even make a decent joke about Utah.
Please, try harder. You’re not entertaining me anymore.
Cool.. I like this, When I want to find a company, I want to find that company, not everyone who ever wrote that companies name on-line.
This will stop Google from finding everything but what I’m looking for because the company I want hasn’t paid Google a ransom fee for their name.
#6 – Hey Mr. High-and-Mighty –> http://www.ahajokes.com/utah_jokes.html
Heres some for you.
Also, in response to the article, I predict a “brain drain” will occur in utah soon, sort of (in that there arent any geniuses in that state anyway, so the moderately intelligent people will leave – leaving only Mormons!!!)
Oh teh Noooeeesss!!!!!!
“The good news is that, given the constitutional problems, the law is likely to be challenged in court.”
Great, looks like the lawyers in Utah, at Google and in D.C. are fixin’ to suck more money.
James, I got one for ya. Whats the state flower of Utah?
ans. Satellite Dish.
Heres another: Whats the definition of a Virgin in Utah?
ans. Any 10 year old girl who can outrun her brothers.
I know, old jokes, applicable to many southern states. But still classics.
Actually , I kind of like Utah, and you James seem to have mellowed.