01-04-2007, 12:30 AM

Serious question (sorry).

What are the rules (and US laws, if any) related to using a domain name that is another person's/company's registered trademark?

If I own Joe's Super Tire Emporium with domain name "joestires.com" and some squatter comes along and registers "joessupertireemporium.com" and uses it as a link to all the other tire emporiums on Earth, do I have any recourse?

If so -- and this is just hopeful thinking -- does this recourse involve pyrotechnics?

01-04-2007, 12:40 AM

As far as I know, there aren't any laws against this.
This is why some companies buy up domains... so others can't. (Example: Apple buying the "iPhone" domain. It has nothing to do with Apple creating or making an "iPhone", they merely bought it so nobody else could and thereby they prevent confusion later on.)
Quite a few people bought up domain names in the early '90s. Companies like Johnson & Johnson, Proctor & Gamble, etc were all part of this if I recall correctly. The only recourse the company had was to buy the domain from the person who owned it, or they had to come up with a new name.
Basically, someone could have owned "www.ford.com" so Ford would then create "www.fordvehicles.com". Then the company would eventually buy the original domain and mirror it.

01-04-2007, 01:06 AM

There have been lawsuits in the US that have forced individuals who "Squat" domain names to give them up, either for free or for a "reasonable" price. I believe MS was involved with in some of this a few years back in connection with the X-Box, but I may be mistaken.

01-04-2007, 09:08 AM

I worked for a large international investment bank who had an entire sub-business for some of their clients where they would snap up domains to prevent others from grabbing them. You'd be amazed at who owns some of the domain names out there.

And no, there's no law against what you suggested. When you buy a domain, it's best to think of the other permutations of that name and buy them at the same time.