As an example, I've seen quite a few sites that are about recipes for popular diets. So their domains are www.PopularDietCompanyRecipes.com where "Popular Diet Company" is the actual brand name of the diet.
On the sites they usually have a disclaimer that says "We are in no way affiliated with Popular Diet Company...blah blah blah"
My question is, is this enough to avoid trademark problems with Popular Diet Company? It looks as though these sites have been around for quite a while and make a good bit of money off the site. I would think if they were going to get shut down they would have by now.
Anyone have any thoughts on this? I would appreciate your advice.
My question is, is this enough to avoid trademark problems with Popular Diet Company?
Probably not.
Im no lawyer, this is just my opinion.
I own a trademark for a common word and I was told I can not protect the name because it is too generic.
dailypress - My question isn't so much about trademarking general terms, it's around having a trademark in the domain name. So in my example above, the trademark is Popular Diet Company and the domain is www.PopularDietCompanyRecipes.com. I've seen quite a few sites around with that type of domain, and it looks like they've been around for years, earning money with ads on their site. They have disclaimers on the site that say "we are in no way associated with Popular Diet", so I'm wondering is that disclaimer enough to keep the trademark holders from taking over the site or suing or whatever it is they do.
They have disclaimers on the site that say "we are in no way associated with Popular Diet", so I'm wondering is that disclaimer enough to keep the trademark holders from taking over the site or suing or whatever it is they do.
Disclaimers don't really mean anything when you're not given permission. Are you saying I could make a site called PopularDietCompanyGivesYouHerpes.com and get away with it because of a disclamer? Just because recipes is a nicer word, it doesn't make it legal.
Of course there are plenty of sites that make money leeching off trademarked keywords, but it doesn't mean they are legal. It's just that PopularDietCompany is too big/busy to be bothered with all the leeches. However, PopularDietCompanyRecipes is limited on the size it can grow to before PopularDietCompany decides it's had enough.
Lawyers get paid big bucks to argue specific cases, it's impossible to offer simple and reliable answers.
Kaled.
They have disclaimers on the site that say "we are in no way associated with Popular Diet", so I'm wondering is that disclaimer enough to keep the trademark holders from taking over the site or suing or whatever it is they do.
I dealt with the same problem before. For example some guy had a site called American Culture .com; I had purchased The American Culture .com (these are only used as examples, but it was a similar case) and the guy threatened to file a complaint because he had claimed that it was his trademark. I did a thorough check and didn’t find a trademark and so continued developing my site. A year later, I found a better/shorter domain and so I transferred the website over.
If you can use a better domain, I think sometimes its worth transferring over rather having to worry about the domain esp. after you spend hundreds/thousands of dollars in marketing and advertising...
I could have a site called www.HappyHappyDiets.com (random example)and I could have a page that was all about PopularDietCompany and recipes for PopularDiet and that would be okay. Is that right? But if I were to have a website with PopularDietCompany in my root domain then that could be trouble.
Correct?
Correct?
That may depend on the trademark owner, if you research about Google and Rolls Royce then they will go to extraordinary lengths to protect their trademarks.
Admitedly there are many independent sites trading under their own names selling trademarked products, computers and tvs are perfect examples, and I guess some companies are not overly concerned about it unless the seller has counterfeited products, the French perfume houses are very protective about this likewise Microsoft with its software...however I digress, not only will you not find the definitive answer here it would probably cost a lot of money to get even a halfway reasonable generic clarification.
My suggestion would be that if you want to create some pages selling a specific trademarked product then contact the company and get it writing whether they will allow you to or not. After all, it's only going to cost you an e-mail/letter and you will get THEIR position at absolutely zero cost.
My suggestion would be that if you want to create some pages selling a specific trademarked product then contact the company and get it writing whether they will allow you to or not.
Thanks for the advice Huskypup. I don't want to sell any products at all, but I have thought about just having an information site about certain products. So I might have a certain product in the domain name or the heading of the page. And I would of course have ads on the site eventually and get some income that way.
if you research about Google and Rolls Royce then they will go to extraordinary lengths to protect their trademarks.
The Rolls Royce buyout is one of the biggest trademark blunders of all time.
