Recent media coverage of intellectual property disputes online has turned attention back on to the phenomenon of cybersquatting, whereby speculators register an internet address in the hopes of selling it to the highest bidder.

But registering your company's domain name in the relevant markets is not all you need to do to protect your intellectual property online. The recent experience of one Irish company that has been attempting to expand into the UK market suggests that securing your domain name is only the start of the battle.

Earlier this year, Sealux, a small Irish manufacturing firm that has developed a patented seal for showers and bathrooms, discovered that one of its competitors, McComb Developments, was including Sealux trademarks on its website.

The trademarks were included in "metatags" - a part of a website's code that is invisible to internet surfers but that is read by search engines to garner information about a website. The same text was also included in McComb's listing in the Kompass business directory.

Sealux was subsequently informed by a third party that when they contacted McComb to purchase Sealux products, they were encouraged to buy a competing product.

Gerry Robinson, founder and managing director, felt that a costly and lengthy legal process would be required to prove that his company had suffered a loss as a result of McComb's actions. McComb offered to remove the tags immediately when confronted with the evidence. As a result, Robinson decided to settle out of court for the nominal sum of £1.

Philip Nolan, an IT lawyer with Mason Hayes Curran, says that even if a company has not registered its brands as trademarks, there is a legal concept of an unregistered trademark, so a firm may be able to take an action against someone who is using its trademarks in this way.

He also suggests that companies like Sealux, which are expanding into European markets, should consider the protection provided by a community trademark. This enables a trademark to be registered once, but if it is infringed the holder can seek redress in any EU member state.

However, no sooner had Robinson had his case highlighted in trade publication TileUK than another competitor was found to be trying to divert web users looking for Sealux products. This time, the competitor used Google's AdWords to purchase keywords that are Sealux brands.

When the names Sealux and Trimlux (both registered trademarks in the UK) were searched for on the Google UK site, a sponsored link appeared on the right-hand side of the page entitled "ShowerSeal Kit-Buy Online". Clicking on this brought users to the homepage of Byretech, an online trader that is one of Sealux's largest competitors.

Robinson feels aggrieved that Google does not do more to protect the rights of trademark holders. "I have no doubt this is happening worldwide and they [ Google] know about it," he says. "All they have to exercise is due care by checking the trademark isn't assigned to someone else."

A Google spokesman says the company has attempted to put automatic filters in place that would check keywords against trademark databases. However, this is dependent on the quality and availability of such databases, which vary significantly in European countries.

As a result, an automated system has not been put in place to prevent traders from buying advertisements that are triggered by their competitors' trademarks.

However, he says Google is happy to remove any offending advertisements when contacted by trademark holders. "As stated in our terms and conditions, the advertisers themselves are responsible for the keywords and ad content that they choose to use," Google said in a statement.

"Accordingly, we encourage trademark owners to resolve their disputes directly with the advertisers, particularly because the advertisers may have similar advertisements on other sites. Google itself has a robust policy in place for dealing with trademark issues.

"To avoid trademark misuse, trademark owners can register their trademark name with Google. This will enable Google's AdWords programme to prevent a trademark name appearing without appropriate permission."

Last month Google lost a high-profile case taken by luxury goods maker Louis Vuitton over the use of its trademarks in Google AdWords campaigns. On appeal, Google was ordered to pay €300,000 in damages and €75,000 in legal costs and is banned from using Louis Vuitton's trademarks in advertising on its websites that are accessible from France.

European courts seem to be taking a stronger stance with Google and other online content providers than their US counterparts. In the US, Google has yet to lose a case over the use of a competitor's brand name by one of its advertisers. But in a high-profile case brought by insurance company Geico, the judge found that while a search for a trademarked term could be used to trigger the appearance of an advertisement from a competitor, these advertisements could not feature the trademarked term in their body text. This has resulted in Google having two policies regarding the use of trademarks in advertising - one for US trademarks and one for trademarks protected outside US jurisdiction.

Nolan suggests the use of trademarks on websites is not a cut-and-dried matter. "If a trademark is being used in the source code of a web page purely for the purpose of diverting business away from the trademark-owner, then the affected party probably has a very strong case," says Nolan. "But comparative advertising is also legitimate use - for example, if you want to say another product costs €5 and yours is only €3.

"It's an evolving area of trademark law as new uses of trademarks on the internet emerge, and ultimately it is going to be down to the courts to decide what's fair use."