That's surprising. The only other suggestion I have is to create a new listing on Maps with your website, a service-area listing where you don't have to provide a public address, but you still need to give Google some contact info in order to verify it. And then hope that -- over time -- Google ranks yours first when searching for that name.
Is it, though? I assume they tried to reach out to him, and he just said "no I'm real and not spam thanks bye".
WRT your second suggestion, I disregard that option because:
1. Even though I own the trademark, I'm not selling anything. I wanted to own the trademark to avoid these kind of situation from happening.
2. IMO It's just not fair that I have to challange a scammer in this race, since he doesn't even have the right to be there in the first place. Google should just fix their broken process.
>>1. Even though I own the trademark, I'm not selling anything. I wanted to own the trademark to avoid these kind of situation from happening.
I'm not a lawyer, but my layperson's understanding of trademarks is that filing and owning it also bears the responsibility of defending it. When trademark challenges are left unchallenged, the trademark you own becomes more likely to be further impinged on in the future (i.e. you must show a history of maintaining and challenging other claims). This is the flipside of David vs. Goliath horror stories where large companies go after small business owners or individuals -- they're defending their trademark.
In this case, you might be able to argue deliberate trademark tarnishment[1] as a form of trademark dilution[2]; not sure if it will help but worth thinking about legal options now if this bothers you this much.
not to be cynical, but I LOL'd at your 2. Google should just do a lot of things. However, they will only do things as long as those things make them money. Ignoring the problem costs them nothing, fixing will cost them.
