Using the term yellow pages?

[twells22]

I am creating a website for my home town and I was wondering if using the term "yellow pages" is illegal? I was creating a directory for local businesses and wanted to use the term for advertising like, "Check out your local yellow pages at ..........com.

 

[labrocca]

TM infringement 100%

 

[robertjr]

United States: AT&T, Verizon, BellSouth, and Qwest, the four largest phone companies in the U.S., dominate the U.S. yellow pages industry; however, the term "yellow pages" and the Walking Fingers logo was heavily marketed by AT&T pre divestiture, AT&T never filed a trademark registration application for the current and most recognized version of the Walking Fingers logo, so it is in the public domain. AT&T allowed the "independent yellow pages" industry to use the logo freely.[1] The "independents" are unrelated to the incumbent phone company and are either pure advertising operations with no phone infrastructure or telephone companies who provide local telephone service elsewhere.

Talk about missing the boat. :notme:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_pages

 

[labrocca]

Interesting. I take it back. Enjoy your yellow pages domain sir.

 

[robertjr]

That is interesting...

How would you like to be the gut that has to tell his boss that "Oh, buy the way, I forgot to..." :o

Let's just say "It's a good thing Ma Bell was resting peacefully by then"

 

[twells22]

robert jr.--So just to make sure, you're saying it is fine if I label that section of my website as my town's yellow pages?

 

[cybertonic]

Yes it's not a TM.

A good proof:

MobileYellowPages.com

Data from Superpages.com (Verizon) the direct and main competitor of YellowPages.com

...

 

[robertjr]

robert jr.--So just to make sure, you're saying it is fine if I label that section of my website as my town's yellow pages?

twells22- I'm not here to give you legal advice and I would not suggest you build you business on the "words" from a post on a forum.(unless the poster's user name has something like Berryhill in it) Also, I really think you should do more research on the topic. NP is full of discussions that will lead you to plenty of resources. You will also find that Mr.labrocca is seldom off target and has made innumerable contributions to the subject over the years.

Now with that said, I have a number of "......YellowPages.com's for both my home town and others towns as well. :wave: The worst thing I have received is some SPAM and a few crappy & not so crappy offers.

 

[ekal]

However, there are 100s of specific Yellow Pages TMs.

Check at uspto.gov

 

[labrocca]

I guess the next question is does your home town have a specific yellow pages already? You may want to look into it and see if they have a TM anywhere.

This sure did turn into an interesting topic.

 

[twells22]

I may just go ahead and play it safe and just call it a directory.

 

[Ronald Regging]

Actually I remember reading something about the fact that "Yellow Pages" is not a TM long before I got into domaining and my interest in TM law. It had to do with a certain "scam" if you'll call it that. Some small companies were sending out invoices to businesses for their Yellow Pages yearly subscription. Somewhere in the fine print, it stated that this was not a bill, but rather advertising.

Basically the idea was they would use the Yellow Pages name and logo, send it to businesses and make it look like an invoice. A lot of businesses pay for listing in the Yellow Pages and probably would not even notice that it wasn't from the real company. Once they paid it, they're ad would appear in some obscure yellow pages publication that who knows if anyone ever saw it.

Technically I don't know if it was illegal, i guess certainly deceptive, so perhaps.

But yeh, as far as I know, it's not a TM.