By Stanley Spencer
A very important question arises in the early stages ofdevelopment of a web site – what would be the most appropriatedomain name? Domain names are representative of the address fora web site, and there is a rising trend of incidents of disputesover domain name registration with increased usage of Internet.
There are numerous factors that have led to a crisis of domainregistration disputes and this, in turn, has led to a rapidincrease in the reported cases of infringement of domain names.Several companies have taken legal action against othercompanies or individuals over alleged copyright violation on thedomain names.
There are some basics that you should understand before choosinga domain name registration:
1. Use of two similar trademarks should not confuse customersabout the products or services.
2. If there is a legal conflict over use of similar trademarks,the first user is likely to win the case.
3. The later user would to give up his claim if he cannot proveshis point and may have to pay the first owner damages.
You should apply these principles to your domain registrationselection process:
1. The best method to avoid conflict of trademarks is to searchthe trademark database of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Officeat www.uspto.gov. It provides you with all registered andpending trademarks. Try to search for your proposed trademark aswell as other similar names and variant spellings. 2. You mustbe able to justify your reason for using the name. Your domainregistration should principally consist of a name you are usingas a trade name, trademark or corporate name.
3. It is better to select more than one name since you are notsure about the availability of the required domain name.
If on searching for the desired domain name, you find that thename has already been registered but there is no content beingdisplayed at the domain, try to find out the details of theowner of the domain registration. It is possible that he/she maybe genuine and have yet not published any content.
But it is equally possible that the owner does not plan todevelop a web site and is willing to give you the domain at theoriginal price. You must confirm that the seller has ownershiprights for that particular domain name registration.
The regulations governing copyright issues for domain names aregoverned by Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers(ICANN).
It is very likely that you would lose right of your domain nameregistration if you have intentionally chosen a name similar toanother domain name so as to confuse potential visitors to thesite. For example, if your site deals in consumer electronicsgoods made by a Samsung competitor, do not choose the name"samsungbusiness.com" since a court is most likely to pass averdict that you selected this name to divert attention ofSamsung customers.
There could be others reasons of losing a domain registration:
1. You have never carried out any business under that name 2.There is no person in your company similar to that name 3. Youare planning to sell that domain name to your competitor forfinancial gain.
If your domain name is same as your name then you may be allowedto continue to use it, despite of the fact that it is similar tosomeone else’s domain name. But the usage of such a name isgoverned by certain condition set by court. For example, Mr.Suki Nokia, who runs a cosmetics business, may be allowed to usethe domain name "nokia.kr" but he would barred from using hissite to demonstrate any electronics-related information oradvertising.
A very useful tip to buy all three of the top level domains -..com, .net and .org. You should buy all possible misspellings ofyour domain name before anybody else takes advantage of thisfact.
If on searching, you find similar names, ask yourself thefollowing questions:
1. Will the products/services on your site compete with theproducts/services on similar domain names?
2. Will your distribution channels for products be same forproducts being sold under the similar domain names?
3. Will your site distract business away from the site with thesimilar name?
4. Is the other name quite famous?
If you get negative answers to all these questions, you can feelconfident to go ahead with your domain name registration withoutany worry of a legal hassle.
Article Source: www.ArticlesBase.com
