Forum Moderators: not2easy
This is my situation:
I registered a domain back in 2001 and put up an information site on it. Since then I've had very little time to work on it, but have always planned to someday, maybe add some Amazon links to it someday too.
The domain is made of three words, no dashes. The first word is a short 3 letter word. The middle word is the important keyword to describe the content of the site and not a word you would normally associate with something commercial - more academic or education related really. The last is just another word that helps to describe better the content on the site. All common words, not associated with any big name brands or anything.
A few weeks ago I happened to come across a site whose domain is those last two words. And I noticed they had them trademarked. I all of a sudden panicked and though, oh god, could they come after me and take my domain away? I never imagined two words like this could get trademarked, they just seem like such common words.
So I called an attorney - she said they might be able to, even if my site stayed totally non-commercial.
So I feel like I have to change the domain name. Which really sucks, the site has a few good links to it now and I can only hope the people will update them to the new domain.
But what is worse, I'm having the most difficult time trying to find a replacement domain. Almost any 2 word combination containing the important keyword is either trademarked or the domain is registered already.
I've got one possibility in mind, but the attorney says it will cost about $250 just to check it out and see if it will be ok to use. And if it's not ok, then I've got to look for yet another one and spend another $250 - and if it's not ok ...
Two main thoughts come to mind when considering this situation.
1) Does it really make sense to trademark such common phrases? Will we be running into a situation where there will be very few possible domains left to be used? Before the web most small businesses (as far as I know) only did business in a small area - and there could very well have been other small businesses in other towns with the same or similar name. But now with the web and only so many domains possible - that are reasonbly short - is this going to cause a lot of problems for new businesses in the future? Or even prevent just pure non-commercial, information web sites in the future to even be able to have a domain name without violating someones trademark?
2) I have several web sites and had never even considered trademark issues before. Some sites were originally made just for fun, some other newer ones are TypeB affiliate sites and one TypeA. Not throw away domains, but not some big company trying to build a brand either. Is it reasonable to go and try to trademark every one now? I know I can't afford it though. Some may even violate an existing trademark as far as know - I only happened to stumble across the site I mentioned above. Or some big company could come along, get a similar domain, trademark it, then come and take mine away - if I understand properly how trademarks work. I was told it would cost about $2000 to get a trademark, if I did that for say, 3 of my existing sites - that would come to $6000. I don't really make a whole lot with this yet. Plus there are other sites I'd like to create too. If I were going to trademark all of them it could easily come to greater then $10,000 to do it. Which I don't begin to have.
So I'm curious - how many people with sites that are either primarily information sites or affiliate sites get their domain names trademarked?
It is totally different if it is for their domain name than the phrase. It could even be on their logo. Go to uspto.gov and look up their trademark and find out what they are really claiming.
Also find out when they first claimed that trademark. If it was before you registered your domain, they would have a better case. If it was after you have a lot more standing to use that name.
And it sounds like that attorney is just trying to get billable hours from you. You can do the preliminary trademark searches yourself *FOR FREE*.
$250 for each time a paralegal spends a couple of minutes running a trademark search seems a little steep.
I can see spending some money once you have narrowed it down yourself, but paying that much for a "nope, it's taken" is ridiculous.
I believe the trademark is for the two word phrase like: widgetstuff, with their domain being widgetstuff.com.
They first filed for the trademark before I had mine, but I didn't know it.
From what the attorney said, it sounds like she will be searching more than just the free trademark search. The one I think I will have her check I feel pretty certain is ok now. Still, I hate to think of spending $250 for it. But I don't feel like I have much of a choice.
