Trademark issue or not?

[Rana1863]

Hello Everyone,

I own a domain about which I just recently discovered a website who owns .de and .com of it. Website is in German and dot com is redirected to the German site. It's a social or perhaps chat site and domain name is their registered name. Does this mean I can't use the domain name I have? I literately have no idea what rights a trademarks or registered name holder have. Any thoughts/suggestions would be greatly appreciated...

 

[d-e-x]

Is your domain ccTLD?

 

[TheBaldOne]

Is the domain name also a Trade Mark?

Just because someone owns and runs a website with a specific domain does not mean they may have a Trrade Mark, in fact few do. Just because a name is 'registered' does not give them a Trade Mark either. Also if they do have a Trade Mark then what does it cover?

 

[Wannabean]

If there is a trademark on the name you cannot use it in the same way as the trademark holder. If they're using it for chat and have a trademark you can't use the name in that way. In fact i'd stay away from any similar uses.

For example it is perfectly ok for me to start a business and call it ford, as long as I'm not doing anything related to cars.