Lee Black

Hi,

I've got a few domains in my sight which I want to develop specifically to their chosen market.

One of the unregistered domains, for example, has a local exact search volume of 49,500 and a global exact search volume of 450,000 pcm respectively which as you can see is very healthy.

What my concern is and why I'm probably so hesitant is that I don't want to step on anyone's toes or cause a conflict of interest even though these are not my intentions.

I almost have a hunch that its unregistered because of the above.. probably some developer has looked at it and said there's no point or why bother? etc etc

Lets say for example I'm talking about Argos and I registered ArgosStore.co.uk with a view to developing an affiliate scheme around argos products etc.

Can Argos shut me down and/or claim the domain as I'm using the name "Argos" in it even though its for their benefit?

If this is the case how does one go about finding out if your in the clear before committing to purchasing & developing a niche domain or am I better to just choose a domain that doesn't contain any conflicting words/names and compromise the search volume? Which in all honesty will just prove pointless for me.

Your help or views is much appreciated.

Cheers

retired_member13

Registering a name containing "Argos" or "HMV" or "T-Mobile" or anyone's else's brand or trademark and then trying to profit from it is only going to get you into legal trouble.

Argos could indeed shut you down, claim the domain, and they could also sue you for substantial damages on top of that, and there's very little that you could do to defend yourself.

Passing yourself off as being part of or connected to Argos is not in their interests or to their benefit, and brand owners generally do not take kindly to people infringing on their copyrights, especially if you're trying to make money off them by this type of activity.

Stay well clear would be my advice.

Lee Black

I see.

So in other words if it has a trademark - leave it alone?

I appreciate Argos is a super brand so that's probably an extreme example.

The only other example I had was for instance if I was selling spurs tickets (leave me alone - I'm a spurs fan ) and registered the domain "spurstickets.co.uk" again cause I'm using "spurs" that's a no no? Id be better off having footballtickets.co.uk and have sub domain such as spurs.footballtickets.co.uk yeah?!

wb

Correct, you can use brand names in subdomains or folder names as far as I'm aware but not in the actual domain itself. Purchasing a trademark domain would certainly not be worth the risk - if you are ever unsure you can check for registered trademarks online at the link below (although it's important to remember also that a trademark doesn't need to be registered for a 'passing off' claim to be made).

Intellectual Property Office - Welcome to the Intellectual Property Office

accelerator

As a general rule, my advice would be don't use other people's trademarks in domains, it's a bad idea.

Strictly speaking a trademark is registered for specific classes of business, so technically you might be able to put a domain containing someone else's trademark into use if you did not conflict with products/services to which their trademark relates. Personally though, I don't bother with trademark domains, I stick to generics or create my own trademarks, and that would be my advice to others.


spurstickets.co.uk would be a big no no. The trademark you would be violating is at:

Intellectual Property Office - Results

It specifically mentions tickets. They own the domain anyway, but let's say if you could reg it, you would definitely lose if they took action against you.

Yes, it is much better using generic domains such as footballtickets.co.uk and have sub domains such as spurs.footballtickets.co.uk, or you could use the club name in the folder or file name. Actually, footballtickets.co.uk is quite a nice domain and I think someone was trying to sell it on here recently.

Hope that helps.

Rgds

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Edwin

The big clue should be the presence of a trademark in combination with a high number of exact searches. That should suggest that A) people have reviewed the domain before (very few high-search keyphrases escape notice entirely) and B) have decided to pass on it because of the TM issues.

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buttontop

i think tho with something like xboxgamestore.co.uk, altho it is using a trademark, microsoft would be less likely to go after you as it is selling a product they dont sell directly themselves. - if microsoft goes onto your site and sees lots of crosses over there products they will also shut you down quicker.

where as if you did argosstore.co.uk they would go after you quicker becuase while your a affi of them they make less money than had the user gone direct to the argos.co.uk store. - i also see getting ranked above argos as a problem myself but your seo might be very good.

in short i think it depends on if the tm is a store that sells direct or not and if it is a brand name like lg plasma's then im sure that lg might tern a blind eye at it. .....tho i might be wrong

retired_member12

I'd say you are wrong! The term 'xbox' leads the domain name, and the user would stand to gain by its use, pure & simple. See this WIPO decision here relating to similarly constructed domain names (and these were only typo's too):

WIPO Domain Name Decision: D2003-0501

To my mind you can never defend the deliberate use of someone elses trademark in a domain name.

aZooZa

The only exceptions are 'commentary' sites, like paypalsucks.com and rolexforums.com - two huge TMs.

Edwin

And those frequently still face legal action - it's just that they're more likely to win. Of course, you can't then advertise the product you're trashing on them, so commercially they're a bust...

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