Trademark your domain or not?

Your Nightmare come true if your domain is trademarked by someone else.

[FrankWeb]

I have a site www.widget-widget.com and found out today that a site www.widgetwidget.com has trademarked their site.

On legal grounds they could demand me to hand over the domain, since the marked it. No chance for me.

Do we now have to get a trademark for every domain?

The costs are high and for me a bit out of reach. Do the people with the deep pockets win here?

[richlowe]

There are pretty specific rules about cybersquatting. Someone who owns a trademark cannot just demand you turn over your domain unless it is a violation of those rules. For example, if for some reason macintosh.us was available and it was about apples (and a real site) then apple computers probably would not be able to take the domain even though they almost certainly have macintosh trademarked. However, if you bought it now and then offered to sell it to them and just put up a nothing site, then you would be very likely to lose in court for cybersquatting.

That, at least, is my understanding.

I am not, however, a lawyer (I am sane).

Richard

[cabbie]

If you bought your domain before it was trademarked then you stand a good chance of keeping it.