Aquamist needs your help...

[Richard L]

I have been pleading to two competing companies, Snow performance and Coolingmist to stop using "Aquamist" as a Google Adword for the last two months. Got ignored. I even got comments such as "get over it".

I may have found a way to combating the adword scenario.

A competitive company such as Snow and Coolingmist pays Google per click. The customer sets a limit on the number of clicks per day, the more they pay, the higher the daily limit. Once the limit is reached, the adword will no longer appear until the the next day.

Google ignores multiple nuisance clicks from the same source and re-credit their customer. This applied to about over 3-10 clicks per day per user.

If I can rally enough people to apply a couple of clicks per day, the adword limit will be reached very quickly and will no longer appear.

It is a long shot, do you think it will work?

[BlackWolf]

I read couple things about this issue on other forums, you guys have TM on name Aquamist right? Contacting google and suing these ignorant people (I am being polite) will help more. I think problem with clicking on ads is, people stop after a while doing that.

Just do a simple list what they offer and see the price, they are talking about developing things and that?s a big lie, like they say ?only available by us? while its on sale in a hardware shop at the corner, it is just a rip-off. While Auqamist engineering special designed water injection systems and add-ons.

[Richard L]

Originally Posted by BlackWolf

I read couple things about this issue on other forums, you guys have TM on name Aquamist right? Contacting google and suing these ignorant people (I am being polite) will help more. I think problem with clicking on ads is, people stop after a while doing that.

Just do a simple list what they offer and see the price, they are talking about developing things and that?s a big lie, like they say ?only available by us? while its on sale in a hardware shop at the corner, it is just a rip-off. While Auqamist engineering special designed water injection systems and add-ons.

I am afraid I do not have trademark on the name, I will try to do it now.

I can see the problem of the interest will fade after a while. I don't think I have a solution to that.

I am not sure your meaning and where to put the "list" on the last paragraph.

[BlackWolf]

I was trying to tell they are not really competing companies against Aquamist, if you visit couple camper and hardware stores you have same things what they offer for the third of their price. While Aquamist engineer most of their own parts.

Maybe it was not relevant to this topic, sorry about that.

[hotrod]

Richard:

I sent you a PM from one of the other forums regarding some suggestions.

That area of law is very complex so I would suggest you check with a lawyer familiar with intellectual property law, and perhaps brush up on the advertising regulations that apply to those companies in their home countries.

I'm not sure there is anything you can do directly to stop them from using the Key word aquamist, other than including a similar key word in yours to pickup customers that search for their products.

Since you don't have world wide trademark protection for that word, If the word does not appear in the visable body of their ad in a manner that would confuse the average reader that they were somehow associated with your company, I don't think there is much recourse. In your post on another forum, you mentioned that the German company asserts that the term aquamist has become a generic reference to any water injection system in his market.
If that is true I would build on it as it is a form of free advertising in that market you should be able to benefit from.

It might be interesting to get some feed back from the folks in and around Germany regarding if they perceive that to be an accurate statement.

Generic terms are coined and accepted by the public at large, like here in the U.S. in the middle part of the 20th century, the term frigidair was a generic term for any refrigerator even though it was also a brand name for one manufacturer. Stores could not use the word frigidair in their printed advertisements, but they could use a similar term like "looking for a new fridge?".

If they are targeting shoppers that might be interested in your systems, it only seems fair that you could target theirs, although I would use a different method than the example you referenced that had a laundry list of key words for Google to index off of.

I think I would also take advantage of and market that your systems are top of the line and have been the standard by which others are judged, instead of low cost imitations. There are several manufactures that have made a market by selling only top end products with prices to match. Cadillac and Snap On tools here in the U.S. both did not shrink from the fact that their products were priced higher than some of their competitors but they sold the fact that you get what you pay for. Both brands were successful in that approach.

I would also sell the fact that your company was the first to develop effective fail safe and water flow control systems and that other manufactures are simply jumping on the band wagon now that you have done the development work.

Larry