If a competitor is using your registered trademark in their Google ad copy, you can file a formal complaint directly with Google. To do so, you need to submit a request through Google’s trademark complaint form, provide proof of trademark ownership, and document specific ad instances where your mark appears in ad text. The stronger and more detailed your evidence file, the faster and more reliably Google can act.

This guide walks through the full filing process, the exact evidence Google expects, and how to build a dated, structured evidence file before you submit anything.

What Google’s Trademark Policy Actually Covers

Google’s trademark policy distinguishes between two different behaviors: using a trademark as a keyword and using a trademark in ad text. These are treated very differently.

Bidding on a competitor’s brand name as a keyword is generally permitted under Google’s policy in most countries. Google does not police keyword selection as a trademark matter. The formal complaint process is designed specifically for situations where the trademark appears visibly in the ad itself, meaning in the headline, description, display URL, or ad extensions.

That distinction matters before you file. If your complaint is about a competitor appearing when someone searches your brand name, but their ad does not contain your trademark in the visible text, Google is unlikely to act on a trademark complaint. For the broader question of competitor brand bidding and what can and cannot be done about it, there is useful context in how paid search share of voice and competitive visibility work across brand terms.

What Google does address through its trademark complaint process is unauthorized use of your registered mark in ad copy. Examples include a competitor’s headline reading