trademark, brand, domain-nameI registered a second level domain and my goal is to sell some products which will be “branded” with that name. So I will develop my website and use it to promote my future business. I aim to be the only one who will be allowed to sell products with that name and use it with any kind of commercial purposes. I didn’t registered the brand nor purchased any trademark or any other license which may ensure that to me officially, I just registered the second level domain with the .com extension:
Buying a domain name, on its own, gives you nothing in terms of trademark rights.
If you are in the U.S., then launching the website and selling products under that name will give you common law trademark rights, and this will give you some protection in preventing others from using the name.
If you are in the U.S., then should also get a registered trademark with the US Patent and Trademark Office. This will give you additional protections above and beyond the common law rights. Registering a trademark is easy to do and relatively inexpensive among the tasks you hire lawyers for.
Most other countries have very different trademark systems than the US. Most other countries don’t have common law trademarks rights so the only way to get protection is to register a trademark in your country.
If your sales are international, then you may want to register your trademark in multiple countries.
Note that even if you have a registered trademark in all countries of the world, that does NOT prevent other companies from using the same name. It only prevents other companies from using similar names for similar products. For example, if you are selling toothpaste, then you probably can’t prevent another company from using the same name to sell car tires.
Having bought the domain before anyone else gives you a possible right to use it even if someone registers the name as trademark. Anyone else can still use the same name, even competitively on any other domain or offline unless you protect the name with a trademark.
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