Would you register a valuable yet clearly trademarked name?

[Silentptnr]

Just wanted to get some opinions. I came across a very attractive .com domain name that is available to hand register. The problem is that I checked to see if it is trademarked....and it is. Been trademarked for many years.

What would you do? Register it and take a chance? Leave it untouched? Give me some feedback please.

 

[doubleU]

In some situations trademarks can be lost due to lack of use, also the mark may not be renewed next time around so it may have a future in someone elses hands.

 

[doubleU]

It is my understanding that as long as your use of the domain does not infringe on the trademark holder's rights, you should be okay.

This does not mean you have rights of ownership of the domain although your right to say that trademark infringement as got to do with it's use.

 

[Domaniak]

Just wanted to get some opinions. I came across a very attractive .com domain name that is available to hand register. The problem is that I checked to see if it is trademarked....and it is. Been trademarked for many years.
What would you do? Register it and take a chance? Leave it untouched? Give me some feedback please.

Short version: YES!
Grab it! Assuming you are ready, willing and able to fight for it if and when time comes!

With all due respect to trademarks, they are not God's universal carte blanche to a name. There are many scenarios where you can profit from such a domain name without infringing on the preexisting trademark. You can even trademark the name yourself to match your acquisition

 

[rafaelo0]

I have another question for @N-A @doubleU @Jasper schilperoord and anyone who can answer it.

Can i sell or is it even legal to try and sell a domain to the government like irs.gov ??

should i even try or avoid headache?

for example i see that irs.gov is the owner of freefilefillableforms.com and im the owner of fileforms.com i was thinking in selling to them but dont even know if its legal to sell domains to the government.

Would love some feedback

Thanks in advance.

 

[Silentptnr]

Probably wouldn't buy it. They use .gov. Private sector companies would pay more anyway.

 

[N-A]

No, it's not illegal to sell domain names to the government. However, speaking from experience of working in the government and not from attempting to sell domains to the government, I believe that this would be a rigorous process. There are way too many formal layers, even more so than a corporation has, for spending any appropriated or non-appropriated funds – the latter of which would primarily be the targets of a commercial based/use domain name (example: MCCS, Navy MWR, etc.).

Additionally, NAF "companies" tend to go with the "second best" (.net/.org) if they're available or whatever is in .com as their target demographics are already met: The people in the agencies themselves and typically, not outside consumers; this way, it really doesn't matter what domain they have as they have free advertising already. Your domain would not fall into this group, but, some examples of this would be marineforlife.org (which now redirects to MCCS' homepage, which is a .org, with a hyphen mind you, itself) for their M4L program and the suicide prevention hotline, dstressline.com (two of which that come to mind as I always hear them on the AFN Pacific radio, the radio station over here with Marines/Air Force personnel as DJs... I don't know if they are NAF or not, but, they use afnpacific.net)... Surely, you can see where I'm going with this.

In conclusion, things move very slowly in the government. I suspect that you could sell your name to a private party before the 2nd person, in a chain of like 1000 mind you, would even see your email for approval (but, most likely, denial).

tl;dr: the government is probably not interested in your name and you'll save yourself some time and heartache just trying to sell it to an end user in the tax biz (H&R Block, etc. for example)

 

[Michael Ehrhardt]

I done some research on the @ and found out it is trademarked

what does this mean ?

Since 23 October 2012, the At-sign is registered as a trade mark by the German Patent and Trade Mark Office—DPMA (registration number 302012038338) for @T.E.L.L.

While company promoters have claimed that it may from now on be illegal for other commercial interests to use the At-sign,[citation needed] this only applies to identical or confusingly similar goods and no court, German or otherwise, has yet ruled on this purported illegality.

A cancellation request was filed in 2013


The at sign, @, normally read aloud as "at", also commonly called the at symbol or commercial at, is originally an accounting and commercial invoice abbreviation meaning "at a rate of"
(e.g. 7 widgets @ £2 = £14).
In contemporary use, the at sign is most commonly used in email addresses. It was not included on the keyboard of the earliest commercially successful typewriters, but was on at least one 1889 model and the very successful Underwood models from the "Underwood No. 5" in 1900 onward. It is now universally included on computer keyboards.

go for it

 

[doubleU]

I have another question for @N-A @doubleU @Jasper schilperoord and anyone who can answer it.

Can i sell or is it even legal to try and sell a domain to the government like irs.gov ??

should i even try or avoid headache?

for example i see that irs.gov is the owner of freefilefillableforms.com and im the owner of fileforms.com i was thinking in selling to them but dont even know if its legal to sell domains to the government.

Would love some feedback

Thanks in advance.

There has been trademarks similar to 'FILEFORMS' in the past which now appear to be dead, most notably 'FORMSFILE' and 'FORM FILE'. While it may seem ok to use or sell the domain fileforms.com now, it might be wiser to seek professional legal advice before doing so.

I'm not aware of any illegality with regard selling non-trademark gTLD domains to governments, please bear in mind that laws are different in each country.

If I were to hazard a guess, I should think it is OK to approach your government with an offer for fileforms.com on this occasion but chances of success may not be to your liking as it becomes rather complicated for them to change the naming of official and legal terminology that tend to cascade throughout there systems.

 

[Domains - Wanted]

@Silentptnr

Too bad you hadn't set up a poll here. Would be interesting to see distribution of NP domainers' yes/no votes on this question

Anyways, my vote is: yes, go for it!

 

[Silentptnr]

@Eric Lyon

Is it possible to add a yes or no poll to this thread?

 

[Eric Lyon]

@Eric Lyon

Is it possible to add a yes or no poll to this thread?

Poll added

 

[Silentptnr]

Poll added

Youre the man!

 

[Silentptnr]

@Silentptnr

Too bad you hadn't set up a poll here. Would be interesting to see distribution of NP domainers' yes/no votes on this question

Anyways, my vote is: yes, go for it!

Great idea!

 

[usernamex]

I actually kinda like that you added the poll later, my first instinct was no way, however after reading the interesting points of the thread it appears to be entirely case dependent, so I voted YES with a big asterisk.

Moniker actually has a Trademark Warning system in place if you attempt to register a TM name, some of which are completely obvious and valid and some are generic and have multiple trademarks that would likely be no issue. I passed on a couple before I understood what the warnings were about, now I am certain a couple would have been fine for me to buy.

 

[domainwest]

pls how valuable are short .tv domains?

 

[BlueprintMedia]

Hello,
I myself own a few "trademarked" dot com domains.
They say that I'm playing with fire. I say bring it!
First, if the domain is composed of an English word(s), then you might be playing it safe.
Just because it's trademarked as selling chonies, doesn't mean you can not sell pet food on that domain name.
Domainers who have possible trademarked domains need to make sure that there is no related links related to the trademarked product(s). If so, then you might want to remove those.
Usually, what domainers should do with possible trademarked domains is, have a landing page with just contact information so a possible buyer can contact you.

It was smart of you to do research, but research is only good if you are planning to use it as a business or to gain knowledge about the domain name (which you did).
The question comes down to a "Gamble".
Meaning, how much are you paying for the domain name?
I've hand regged all of my so called "trademarked" domains. My gamble is just minimal, $8.17.
But, if you are planning of buying a "trademarked" domain for thousands, then your gamble is high risk.

Some domainers fight back and win the battles, then they add more to the asking price of the domain for getting them upset or time and money. Some domainers that took the gamble win big.
Domaining itself is a huge gamble. You can't expect of landing a huge whale by playing nice.

For example, look at Nissan. The original owners of Nissan.com have been in a battle with the auto maker for over 20 years.
Is Nissan Autos going after them? Yes!
Have they succeeded, NOPE. Is Nissan an English word? NO, but the name Nissan is the original domain name owners last name.
The old man Mr.Nissan sells computers not Automobiles.