Register my website name worldwide
- posted by: Dilak on 2017-09-05
- tagged:
website, copyright, domain-name
- score: 0
I have set up a website and I want to register (make a copyright) the website name worlwide. I tried to look at WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) with its Madrid agreement but I live in Canada and Canada is not a member of this agreement.
I have a domain name in .com and I know that it is not enough because some one else may use my website name or even use another domain with the same name like name.ca
Please what shoul I do?
Answer 13288
- posted by: Matiss on 2017-09-05
- score: 2
Some things to consider first:
- Domain name registration does not imply you automatically own a trademark for that name in that country. Your chances of protecting trademark increases a tiny bit because you might have valid claim to domain name, but that’s about it;
- Domain name registration is governed by local agencies, meaning, domain name registration in Germany can and is governed differently than in mainland China.
- Even if that specific domain is available to register in that specific country you want to register it in, your registration can be revoked later if there is a company or trademark registered in the same country with same or even similar name before, and sometimes even after you registered your domain if that party makes a claim for that domain in the registry. In some jurisdictions local organizations and legal entities take precedence over who has the initial domain name registration, even if the entity is formed after the domain is registered in some edge cases.
- Complying with various rules and regulations for domain name registration is very time consuming and expensive. For example, having a .de domain name requires you to have administrative contact living in Germany. To register .uk domain, you need a valid address (not a PO box) in UK. To register .fr, you must be resident of EU or have company that operates in EU, or has office or HQ in EU, or Iceland, or Liechtenstein, or Norway, or Switzerland. In some countries, you can not register domain name if you are not resident or do not have a company registered there, full stop. List goes on and on.
My advice to you is to maintain your .com, get a .ca as it seems it’s your principal place of business and whichever domains your main and largest markets are. If you have a strong local presence in some country (office, a lot of customers), do get a domain there, but focus your marketing and publicity efforts on .com so it becomes essential part of the brand. Then your primary markets won’t even associate you with their local TLD’s and that’s that.
From my experience, .com is plenty enough. You can optionally get some registrations in countries you know you will have very substantial presence in. If this really becomes a problem at some point (domain squatters), you will probably have enough manpower and cash to deal with this anyway.
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