Hey all!
Okay, so it is well known that US government doesn't accept trademarks based on 'purely' geological names. A major number of domainers invest in [ geo + generic word ] names. There is even a popular guide on namepros on how to do that.
While, purely geological names cannot be trademarked, a heavy amount of geo + word names have live trademarks on them. If you search 'Dallas' at TESS database there are about 1300 results, few examples are Dallas Financial Planners, Dallas College, Dallas Retro, and these are live.
So, from my understanding, these names are trademarked and if someone tries to outbound to such brands looking to sell his domain, he could be well labelled as cybersquatter and possibly sued at that.
However, seeing the vast number of investments and sales in geo domains, I'm pretty sure that I'm mistaken somewhere in this area.
So, what are your thoughts about it? Has any of you encountered such situation? Or do you have some knowledge that can prove that these names can be sold legally? Would love to hear opinions from you all!
Okay, so it is well known that US government doesn't accept trademarks based on 'purely' geological names. A major number of domainers invest in [ geo + generic word ] names. There is even a popular guide on namepros on how to do that.
While, purely geological names cannot be trademarked, a heavy amount of geo + word names have live trademarks on them. If you search 'Dallas' at TESS database there are about 1300 results, few examples are Dallas Financial Planners, Dallas College, Dallas Retro, and these are live.
So, from my understanding, these names are trademarked and if someone tries to outbound to such brands looking to sell his domain, he could be well labelled as cybersquatter and possibly sued at that.
However, seeing the vast number of investments and sales in geo domains, I'm pretty sure that I'm mistaken somewhere in this area.
So, what are your thoughts about it? Has any of you encountered such situation? Or do you have some knowledge that can prove that these names can be sold legally? Would love to hear opinions from you all!