SEARCH ENGINE giant Google will liberalise its trademark policy in Ireland next month, allowing businesses to use brand names they do not own in online adverts.

Google’s trademark policy for Ireland, Britain and Canada will be adjusted on September 14th to mirror changes implemented in the US last year.

Under the updated policy, Google will permit certain Irish advertisers – such as resellers and informational sites – to use the trademark of other businesses in the text of their online advert, even if they don’t own that trademark or have explicit approval from the brand owner to use it.

However Google will not allow ads to run if they use trademarks in a competitive, critical or negative way. The internet giant will continue to monitor ads on a case- by-case basis and will remove those ads that do not comply with its policies, according to Peter Fitzgerald, industry director at Google UK.

In a separate development, European companies from September 14th will be able to pay to select trademarks as internet search engine terms, or “keywords”, through Google’s AdWords online advertising system.

This will bring Europe into line with the US and other parts of the world where this so-called “brand name bidding” is already permitted by Google. According to Mr Fitzgerald, this will not affect Ireland or Britain, as this policy was implemented in these jurisdictions several years ago.

Brand-holders have in some cases taken legal action against Google for allowing competitors to “piggy-back” on their trademarks and gain publicity in this way.

In March the European Court of Justice ruled that, in general, the sale of keywords which are brand names through Google’s AdWords did not infringe European trademark law, although this decision came with a number of caveats.