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Originally Posted by argonaut They do if they have registerd the word and the domain name registrant is using it in a way that infringes those registered rights.
The term 'generic' perhaps isn't that helpful. With trademarks 'descriptive' is the important term. A descriptive 'mark' cannot be a registered trademark as everyone has the right to use it for those described goods and services. I can't claim 'apple' to sell fruit. I could claim it to sell toilet rolls, for example.
Any word can be trademarked so long as the word doesn't describe the goods or services being sold, and this is why 'generic' doesn't mean that much. 'Tomato' is generic but not if it is a mark for a brand of computer. If it is trademarked for computer equipment by a company and I have tomato.co.uk and start using the domain to sell computers without the trademark owners agreement I'm acting unlawfully. It would be the same principle if I opened a computer shop and called it Tomato Computer Shop. It's not the domain that counts, it's who has rights to a mark and whether the use of the mark when expressed as a domain name infringes those rights. |
Yes so even if someone had the trademarks containing apples or tomato they still wouldn't be able to take those domains off somebody else unless the domain was tomatocomputershop???
Sedo has some good cases
http://www.sedo.co.uk/legal/index.ph...id=&language=e
“The Panel determines that “target” is a generic term and a common word. Complainant does not have monopoly over any domain name with the word “target” in it. The Panel finds that Respondent has rights to and legitimate interests in a domain name that consists of a generic or common term. … Additionally, where a domain name is generic, the first person to register it in good faith is entitled to the domain name and this is considered a ‘legitimate interest.’”