Protect Trademarks Before You Choosing To Buy Domain Name

Choosing a domain name is simple.
If it is short, memorable, pronounceable, clever, easily spelled and suggests the nature of the commerce on your website, you've got yourself a winner.
But even if your choice is brilliant from a marketing standpoint, it may not be so smart from a legal perspective.

Many domain names -- for instance, coffee.com, drugs.com and business.com -- are potentially powerful domain names, but they're generic.
That is, they describe whole categories of products or services. Generic terms can never be trademarks. To be protected, a trademark must be distinctive.

If you choose a domain name that conflicts with any one of the millions of commercial names that already exist, you risk losing it.
And if you've put money and sweat into marketing your website and then are forced to give the domain name up, your Web-based business is likely to suffer a damaging, if not fatal, blow.

If a domain name uses surnames, geographic names or common words that describe some aspect of the goods or services sold on the website (healthanswers.com for online health information) it is ineligible for trademark protection unless the owner can demonstrate distinction through substantial sales and advertising. If the trademark owner has been able to register a name with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, it is probably distinctive. You can find more information on www.uspto.gov.

When you protected your trademarks and finished all that process you may registrar domain name.
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The rules for understanding whether a legal conflict exists comes from trademark law. Here are the basics you need to understand:

• Names that identify products or services in the marketplace are trademarks.
• Distinctive (clever, memorable) trademarks are protected under federal and state law.
• Distinctive business and domain names usually qualify as trademarks.
• The first commercial user of a trademark owns it in case of a legal conflict with a later user.
• One trademark legally conflicts with another when the use of both is likely to confuse customers about the products or services, or their origin.
• If a legal conflict — called an infringement — is found to exist, the later user will have to stop using the mark and may even be held liable to the trademark owner for damages.