Domain Name Trademarks

By: Richard Chapo
Submitted: 2007-01-17 13:09:22
Print this article | Tell a friend | For publisher | Social Bookmarking
Rating:
 

As your Internet business grows, the value of your domain name increases. The issue of a domain name trademark should move to the top of your list. You need to guard against unscrupulous competitors that may try to incorporate your domain name in their meta tags to obtain search engine rankings under your name. If you have a domain name trademark, you can go after these individuals and compel the search engines to remove their listings.

What Is A Trademark?

A trademark is a distinctive item that is used to identify a logo, product, device, package or service. The trademark identifies the item as being provided by a particular firm. To protect these items you can obtain a mark from the patent and trademark office that prohibits others from trying to gain economic advantage from your mark.

Domain Name

The patent and trademark office views domain names in a unique way. The office views the “http://www” element as a part of the file transfer process, not your domain name. The “.com”, “.net”, etc., designations are considered top-level domain identifiers and are also disregarded for the purpose of a domain name trademark. For example, our domain name is http://www.sandiegobusinesslawfirm.com. If we submitted the domain name for registration, only the “sandiegobusinesslawfirm” portion would be considered for a mark.

Locators Cannot Be Registered

A domain name is a locator for file pages. When you type in your domain name, a server locates and displays files. If a domain is used solely for this purpose, it will not be granted a mark. Instead, the domain name must be incorporated into the site. For instance, Amazon is recognized as an online bookstore and the site actually has the word “Amazon” on every page. Since "Amazon.com" is more than a locator, Amazon can apply for and receive a trademark. If Amazon used the domain name, bookstore.com, the company would be able to register “Amazon”, but not “bookstore.”

Generic and Descriptive Terms

Domain names that are generic or descriptive in nature cannot be registered because they fail to designate a distinctive product or service. For example, “sandiegobusinesslawfirm” is comprised of generic terms and describes who and where we are, to wit, a San Diego business law firm. This domain name cannot be trademarked. The same result would occur with bank.com, book.com, advice.com, etc.

You may be thinking, “What about ‘Coke?’ "Coke" is a trademarked term because it is a distinctive term for a soft drink product. It just so happens that a brilliant marketing plan has convinced most people to refer to soft drinks as “cokes”, even if they actually prefer another brand!

Trademarks are an important factor in protecting your Internet business. Armed with a trademark, you can keep competitors from pulling traffic off the search engines when people search for your site.

Richard Chapo is with http://www.sandiegobusinesslawfirm.com - a law firm providing legal advice to California businesses. This article is for general education purposes and does not address every facet of the subject matter. Nothing in this article creates an attorney-client relationship.

Article source: Expert Articles

Most Recent Articles in Domain Names category

  • How To Make Money Online With Domain Parking - By: Melvin Richardson
    If you want to make money online parking domain names is a great way to get started. You purchase your domain name and park it on one of the relevant sites and the advertisements will bring in the cash for you.
  • Cheap Domain Names, Hosting & Registration are Easy To Find Nowadays - By: Joel Mclaughlin
    So you have a dream for a web site, an exciting idea or something you want to accomplish on the web. Well in order to get started on the exciting Internet you must first find a domain name and hosting provider. But not just any provider, we recommend that you find a cheap domain name and cheap domain hosting provider. Your web domain name is an address that points to your web site. Telling the world where to go to find your site. These domain names come in the form of dot com's, dot net's and so on.
  • 1 Year on From Sunrise for the .asia Domain Launch - By: James Betchley
    Nearly a year has passed since Early Bird Sunrise registration began for the coveted new .asia domain extension, the Early Bird Sunrise period (SR2a) was the first opportunity for commercial entities to register a .asia extension. Prior to this, registration was limited to Asian governments wishing to submit their public bodies and culturally or economically important domains during the pre-Sunrise period.
  • What Everybody Ought To Know About Domain Reselling Business - By: Sandra Mathew
    Domain Reselling Business Ethics - Learn how Domain Resellers jumpstart their business in the Domain and Hosting Industry.
  • It's good form to credit your source even when it comes from the public domain - By: Narinderjit Singh
    "Okay, well what will your site be on?" He encouraged me to think about the things in which I was an expert. That wasn't too tough. I've spent five years helping people in crisis find drug addiction treatment. "How about if I help people understand drug addiction treatment." Now he was sure I had taken too many falls, and that they had all been while riding without a helmet. More out of pity than duty, he showed me how to use Overture's bid tool.
  • Domain selection - 5 Tips for choosing a domain name - By: George Pallan
    Domain selection - 5 Tips for choosing a domain name The domain name is a very important part of your website. The careful selection and key wording of your domain name is one of the most crucial part of the initial steps in setting up any website. Here are the 5 tips for choosing a domain name.
  • The Quest for the Perfect Domain Name - By: Christie Cadogan
    The details one has to consider when searching for that perfect domain name. Domain name choices.
  • Choosing a Domain Name for your Success Coaching Business - By: Mikel Bruce
    Your domain name is one of the most important decisions that you can make when you start your business and/or when you decide to invest in a website for your Coaching Practice. Even if you have an established website and domain name, if it does not fit certain standards you may want to consider changing it so that it is a more effective tool for helping you grow your business
  • Benefits of Choosing Reseller Hosting - By: Richa Sinha
    Reseller hosting is a form of web hosting wherein the account owner may split up their allotted hard drive space and bandwidth and resell web hosting. Hence, it acts as a middleman between parent web hosting company and the end customer.
  • Domain name – An Introduction! - By: Richa Sinha
    A domain name is a name that identifies one or more IP address. These are mainly used in URLs to identify particular web page. This article elaborates more about types of domain names.