Am I infringing trademarks?

[NameLogix]

Hi All

This is my first day here and I must say, this is a wonderful forum; lot of knowledge sharing and suggestions. Thank you all pros! I am on my 2nd day of domaining and already bought some many domains.

I made a mistake of buying few potentially trademark infringing domains too by mistake. ( I came to this forum after I bought and yes, I read the sticky on copyright infringing domain registering ). I think it will be prudent to seek advice from pros before I continue buy domains.

Please tell me whether I made a mess in the below:

1. I bought a domain which is like (not the actual domain)
"TopQualityGears.com"
But there is a company in eastern part of the world with the same name "Top Quality Gears inc.." but they operating on TopQualityGear.com ( because TopQualityGears.com was not available.. ). Am I infringing them?

2. I registered a .info version of company who is using .com which was bought by them for lot of money. Am I in trouble? They trademarked the word only this year, but the domain is registered more than 10 years before and might changed hands.

Obviously, I won't register any more such domains if it is infringement. And

3. Is it ok to publicly post domain names in a forum for suggestions, even before they get transferred to me? ( I am tempting to post all the domain names here to know whether I am going in the right direction )

4. Do one infringe a trademark when registering the domain or when using it?

Thank you All!

 

[Bhavinj]

About the second point, 4 characters can be acronym of anything. So if you build a website thats related to the company that owned .com, it might be a problem. As a stand alone domain, your .info shouldn't be a problem at all.

 

[PremiumDomains4Sale]

I usually google or visit different variations of the domain name before I register.But is there any more effective way to avoid this?

 

[loredan]

Welcome to the forums NameLogix, enjoy your stay!

1. This one is quite tricky. If you list your domain for sale make sure you price it under $1,000 so it might be cheaper for them just to buy the name from you than open an UDRP. If you plan to develop just make sure you use the site for something not related with their business.

2. Same as above

3. I'd wait until they get transferred to you...

4. It depends on how well known the TM is. If you register whatever pepsi, sony, mercedes related domains you have no excuse that you didn't know about TM. If you register something like topqualitygears you can say that you had no idea on the TM at the time of registration.

Anyway just stay away from TM domains, do a bit of research before you register a name, build a clean generic or brandable portfolio and you should be fine.

Best of luck in your domaining career

 

[NameLogix]

Thank you Ioredan for your valuable suggestions! Bhavinj, good point. Thank you!

Welcome to the forums NameLogix, enjoy your stay!

1. This one is quite tricky. If you list your domain for sale make sure you price it under $1,000 so it might be cheaper for them just to buy the name from you than open an UDRP. If you plan to develop just make sure you use the site for something not related with their business.

2. Same as above

3. I'd wait until they get transferred to you...

4. It depends on how well known the TM is. If you register whatever pepsi, sony, mercedes related domains you have no excuse that you didn't know about TM. If you register something like topqualitygears you can say that you had no idea on the TM at the time of registration.

Anyway just stay away from TM domains, do a bit of research before you register a name, build a clean generic or brandable portfolio and you should be fine.

Best of luck in your domaining career

 

[enlytend]

Welcome to the forum!

Infringement is determined by usage - when you register a trademark for your business or product, you register it for one or more classes of goods and services. This is why Apple Computers and Apple Records are able to co-exist.

If you register a domain and use it for the same goods and services as the mark holder, that's when you could be infringing.

Just registering a domain USUALLY doesn't mean you're infringing. I say "usually" because well-known trademarks (name brands that everyone recognizes) have some extended reach.

It's a complicated topic, but if you're serious about domaining you need to get up to speed on it. Reading through some of the threads in our Legal Issues section, should help you understand it better.