Last week Google announced two significant changes to its trademark policies:
The largest change will allow competitors to purchase trademarked terms in most of the European countries that were excluded in the May 2009 change. It brings the trademark policies in most European countries into alignment with its policy in 190 countries.
The second change allows a larger set of advertisers in UK, CA and IE to use trademarks in their ad copy. These new advertisers include resellers information sites and complementary product sellers. This mirrors a change Google made last year to their US trademark policy.
The Eric Goldman has a great writeup on the background and Google's likely rationale for the upcoming changes.
The changes go into effect on September 14.
