From the Nolo Business & Human Resources Center
Domain Names and Trademarks FAQ
Get answers to your questions about domain names
and trademarks, and how the two can conflict.
What's Below:
When does an Internet domain
name qualify as a trademark?
How can I find out whether a
trademark I want to use as a domain name is already being used?
What happens if there is a
conflict between an Internet domain name and an existing trademark?
Can a business trademark a
domain name for future use?
When does an Internet
domain name qualify as a trademark?
A domain name, such as nolo.com, can qualify as a trademark when it is used
in connection with a website that offers services to the public. This includes
all sites conducting e-commerce and sites such as Yahoo.com that provide
Web-related services.
However, only some types of commercial domain names qualify for trademark
protection. For instance, while domain names that use common or descriptive
terms, such as healthanswers.com or stampfinders.com, may work very well to
bring users to a website, they usually do not qualify for much trademark
protection. This means that owners of such domain names generally won't have
much luck stopping the use of these words and phrases in other domain names. In
other words, by using common terms that are the generic name for the service
(for example, "dictionary.com") or by using words that merely describe the
service or some aspect of it (for example, "returnbuy.com"), the owner of the
name will have less trademark rights against the users of similar domain names
than she would if her domain name was distinctive.
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How can I find out
whether a trademark I want to use as a domain name is already being
used?
Because so much business is now being done online, most people will want to
be able to use their proposed trademark as a domain name so that their customers
can easily locate them on the Web.
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