How To Avoid Copyright Infringement
When Registering Domain Names
In the early days of the Internet some very opportunistic individuals registered domain names like cocacola.com, tomcruise.com, pearljam.com, thinking that they would get type in traffic from people trying to find these well known names.
Since then there have been several major lawsuits on the subject of trademarks, service marks and copyright issues in domain names. The courts awarded the domain names to the individuals and companies who owned the trademarks and service marks.
You can avoid these problems by following a few simple guidelines:
- Do not deliberately choose a domain name that could be confused with a well known and probably trademarked company name. As an example, you could be in trouble if you choose staplesofficesupplies.com. The large and well known company Staples is likely to take action against you and you will lose, especially if you are directly competing with them.
- Choose names that make sense for your type of business. If a problem comes up, you have to be able to justify your reason for your choice of domain name. You can safely use your own trademarks, service marks or corporate name.
- Your own name is generally safe but you may run into trouble if it matches the name of a well known celebrity who has trademarked that name.
- It is possible for you to use a domain name that is similar to another's trademark if your objective is not to criticize the other person’s business.
- On the Internet, two companies can have the same names in their domain name if they are not competing businesses. As an example, Marshall's Electrical and Marshall's Pharmacy are non-competing businesses. Marshall's Electrical can operate under marshallselectrical.com and the pharmacy under marshallspharmacy without any problem. As far as the name marshalls.com, it comes down to who is quickest to register that domain name.
A Few Additional Tips on Domain Names
A good strategy for businesses is to register the main top level domains, which are .com, .org, and .net. As an example, if your domain name is dancingfeet.com, you would also register dancingfeet.net and dancingfeet.org. That prevents other people from using your domain name variations.
You might also consider registering misspelled versions of your domain names.
For an individual, it is always a good idea to try to register your own name. As an example, if your name is Kira Brown, you would try to register kirabrown.com. First names are even better, but these are rarely available any more.
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