Article : Warning! Your Domain Name Could Infringe On Trademarks

Posted by Al Martinovic

If you have or are about to purchase a domain name, YOU could be in trouble and you don't even know it yet...

See, what the domain sellers won't tell you is that the domain name you are purchasing or have purchased can possibly infringe on trademark rights and you can lose that domain name or even worse.

Trademark and servicemark laws apply not only off-line but on-line as well and they even apply to domain names.

Now, a trademark generally applies to goods where as a servicemark applies to services. For the purpose of this article I will refer to trademarks as the same rules apply.

A trademark can be a word, name, symbol, or device and it is used to distinguish and indentify the goods and services from one person or company from that of another.

The purpose of a trademark is to prevent confusion in the eyes of the consumer relating to particular goods and services. Basically, they are in place to prevent unfair competition.

So with that said, just because you purchased a particular domain name it does not necessarily mean you have exclusive rights to it.

If there is a trademark in your domain name, the mark owner has a legal right to send you a "cease and desist" letter and possibly take that domain name away from you.

If you don't believe a word I've said so far then I offer myself as proof because it happened to me. I recently lost one of my domain names under this exact same circumstance.

For legal reasons I can't tell you the domain name as I agreed to make no further references to it, but there were two words in my domain name that were associated with a trademark.

Now, I wasn't aware of this when I purchased the domain name. And I definitely wasn't aware of trademark laws.

Don't be ignorant on the subject like I was. You can avoid any potential problems by educating yourself and thereby preventing the samething from happening to you.

Don't make the same mistake that I did!

Do your research before you buy a domain name and make sure there is NO trademark associated with that name.

There are trademark search engines where you can type in a word or a phrase and it will tell you if it is a trademark.

You can visit theUnited States Patent And Trademark Office (USPTO) website to do a trademark search:

http://www.uspto.gov/

Now, in my case I chose not to fight the trademark dispute and gave up my domain name voluntarily. I felt it just wasn't worth the time, money and headaches to launch a fight over this.

If this should ever happen to you, you do have rights and there are proper channels to go through to settle the dispute. Contact a lawyer who specializes in this field.

And don't even think for one minute that this sort of thing can't happen to you. Trust me. If you have a trademark in your domain name it is only a matter of time before you get that letter in the mail like I did.

There are numerous cases all over the internet concerning disputes over trademark and domain names.

Don't you be one of them...

source : http://www.qwesz.com/domain-name-registration/warning-your-domain-name-could-infringe-on-trademarks.html

Below are the most searched keywords,about 'domain name',in the internet (datas of September 2007)

Search	Word
1645004	domain name register
487374	domain name
73201	internet domain name
36530	domain name registration
11591	free domain name
10274	buy domain name
9786	domain name search
4581	domain name web hosting
4330	domain name hosting
3801	gateway domain name
3781	domain name for sale
3597	sell domain name
3526	cheap domain name registration
2853	domain name renewal
2777	yahoo domain name
2558	purchase domain name

WHAT IS the DOMAIN

The term domain name has multiple related meanings:

• A name that identifies a computer or computers on the internet. These names appear as a component of a Web site's URL, e.g. wikipedia.org. This type of domain name is also called a hostname.
• The product that domain name registrars provide to their customers. These names are often called registered domain names.
• Names used for other purposes in the Domain Name System (DNS), for example the special name which follows the @ sign in an email address, or the Top-level domain names like .com, or the names used by the Session Initiation Protocol (VoIP), or DomainKeys.
• They are sometimes colloquially (and incorrectly) referred to by marketers as "web addresses".

This article will primarily discuss registered domain names. See the Domain Name System article for technical discussions about general domain names and the hostname article for further information about the most common type of domain name.

if you want to see all article here is the source
source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name

WHAT IS the DOMAIN NAME SYSTEM

On the Internet, the Domain Name System (DNS) associates various sorts of information with so-called domain names; most importantly, it serves as the "phone book" for the Internet by translating human-readable computer hostnames, e.g. en.wikipedia.org, into the IP addresses, e.g. 66.230.200.100, that networking equipment needs for delivering information. It also stores other information such as the list of mail exchange servers that accept email for a given domain. In providing a worldwide keyword-based redirection service, the Domain Name System is an essential component of contemporary Internet use.

Uses

The most basic use of DNS is to translate hostnames to IP addresses. It is in very simple terms like a phone book. For example, if you want to know the internet address of en.wikipedia.org, the Domain Name System can be used to tell you it is 145.97.39.155. DNS also has other important uses.

Preeminently, DNS makes it possible to assign Internet destinations to the human organization or concern they represent, independently of the physical routing hierarchy represented by the numerical IP address. Because of this, hyperlinks and Internet contact information can remain the same, whatever the current IP routing arrangements may be, and can take a human-readable form (such as "wikipedia.org") which is rather easier to remember than an IP address (such as 66.230.200.100). People take advantage of this when they recite meaningful URLs and e-mail addresses without caring how the machine will actually locate them.

The Domain Name System (DNS) distributes the responsibility for assigning domain names and mapping them to IP networks by allowing an authoritative server for each domain to keep track of its own changes, avoiding the need for a central registrar to be continually consulted and updated.

if you want to see all article here is the source
source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_name_system

Article : Finding Recently Deleted / Expired Domains

Finding Recently Deleted / Expired Domains

There are many reasons why people buy expired domain names. One of the reasons these recently deleted domains are attractive is the notion that they are more favored by the search engines than new domains, and many of them carry good page rank. For example, many expired yahoo domains and those found in DMOZ contains page rank 3 and more. Furthermore, buying yahoo expired domains could save you a few hundred dollars a year.

Expired domains are web site addresses that have been registered and the owner has failed to pay to keep the domain registration. What happens a lot of the time is people register a domain name, or purchase it for a year, they develop a web site and advertise it, to get targeted traffic. But for whatever reason, the domain owner failed to or decided not to extend it when it's due for renewal.

There are many benefits for picking up recently expired domain name, unlike a new domain name, they already has traffic that can come from search engine promotion, directories, forums, back links and a whole host of other promotion methods. Such domains are obviously worth a lot of money. Register expired domain names that have traffic can be a good web site promotion technique to be used in connection with other website promotion programs. If you are looking for alternative ways to benefit from expired domain traffic to your site, they are a good investment.

Other than using expired domain traffic as a web site promotion technique, you can also buy deleted domain names and develop them into a new website. Once you have found some good quality domains that are about to expire or have just expired then you will need to back order them to give yourself a chance of getting your hands on the ones that you have found.

Surely you would know by now, that if you were to purchase a brand new domain, you would have to do all the advertising, promotion, SEO work, submission to search engines, forums, and directories yourself.

To buy expired domain traffic is all about capturing all the effort, time and money that the previous owner developed and putting it to good use for yourself. While there is no way to gauge the actual amount of traffic going to a recently deleted domain, you can find out its link popularity in the major search engines.

source : http://www.active-domain.com/expired-domain/

Another Forum


First comments in this forum :

Naming my domains

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I have always had difficulty in coming up with a name for my domain. I want the name of my site to be interesting enough that it catches my visitors' curiousity; such that he or she would want to see more. Are there stratgies that one should use when trying to come up with a domain name for a website?

__________________
Yours in Success,
Lawren
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Use tools like DomainIt and NameBoy.
.....

Here is the link to this forum :
http://www.v7n.com/forums/domain-name-forum/66949-naming-my-domains.html

Another Forum
First comments in this forum :

on Sat Aug 19, 2006 8:47 pm

Yahoo & DMOZ expired domain names Search will help you to search for expired and soon to expire (expiring) domain names still listed in the Yahoo & DMOZ directory.
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thank you! I can find cool domain names now for the future,thank you once again.
.....

Here is the link to this forum :
http://www.d4free.net/forums/post72582.html

Another Forum

First comments in this forum :

Hi,

I am changing my domain name and my old domain is 2 yrs old. For tranferring the value of our old domain, I am using 301 permanent redirection page wise. Apart from that I am also requesting other webmaster to point our new website. Can anybody tell me apart from this what all I can do to save my ranking position in major search engines.

Thanks,

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Just to add that you must Wait until google finds your new domain before removing the old one. This is VERY important

..................

Here is the link to this forum :
http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=19567

Another Forum

Some of the forum subjects from this forum:


Who to go to for web hosting
UK based web hosting
A guide to dreaming up a domain and website idea
where to buy a domain?
Domain Name Basics: An Introduction
Domain Name Question
cheap domainsYahoo's special offer ... Internet domains as cheap as $1.99!
Where Can I Get A Free Domain Name???
Real price for domains

Here is the link to this forum :
http://www.webdeveloper.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?daysprune=30&forumid=20&s=

Another Forum

First comments in this forum :

Search for a Domain Name in G.?

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When you do a domain/company name search in Google you get the first listing as the domain/company usually..
Google lists, ONLY for the FIRST result company, the major areas in that website . For example search for FORD and you will get Ford . com in the first place and under it you will see 4 main Categories inside Ford . com website.

Why does some websites have it why some don't.? Does anyone know how to accomplish that?

Thanks

Here is the link to this forum :
http://forums.seochat.com/google-optimization-7/search-for-a-domain-name-in-g-158839.html