Domain name & Trademarks
Discussion
Just wondering if anyone can advise on this please.
So i have a company and i sell a product hypothetically called ABCWidget1 this product is made by a company called ABCInc
If i wanted to register and use the domain name ABCWidget1 and divert this back to my own website is this an trademark or copyright infringement ? the website is available and i would assume if ABCinc wanted it they would have registered it themselves?
So i have a company and i sell a product hypothetically called ABCWidget1 this product is made by a company called ABCInc
If i wanted to register and use the domain name ABCWidget1 and divert this back to my own website is this an trademark or copyright infringement ? the website is available and i would assume if ABCinc wanted it they would have registered it themselves?
Possibly. When I worked for a vendor one of our resellers bought the .uk and a few other tld domain names of the product/model name, the company I worked for owned and used .com of it's company name
It was a tricky one to handle as they were a good reseller, brought in a decent amount of business, but Legal being American went too far too quick and it all got a bit handbags.
If you do this, you could risk your trading relationship with the vendor you're selling
It was a tricky one to handle as they were a good reseller, brought in a decent amount of business, but Legal being American went too far too quick and it all got a bit handbags.
If you do this, you could risk your trading relationship with the vendor you're selling
You don't own a domain name, you only ever licence it. If it's a UK domain name then it's handled by Nominet who run a Dispute Resolution Service for cases like this - http://www.nominet.org.uk/disputes/resolving-domai...
Broadly speaking you would be perfectly entitled to register and use the name, however they'd be likely to win any dispute and have the name re-assigned to them.
Plus you might annoy them, which would be bad for future business.
Probably best to run it by them first, perhaps suggesting that you point it to a domain that will only sell ABCWidgets if you also offer competitors products.
This story on The Register would be similar to your situation. A company selling official Star Wars fancy dress via Star-Wars.co.uk has lost the domain to Disney (who now own the rights to Star Wars) despite using the domain for a decade (the decision is currently in appeal).
Broadly speaking you would be perfectly entitled to register and use the name, however they'd be likely to win any dispute and have the name re-assigned to them.
Plus you might annoy them, which would be bad for future business.
Probably best to run it by them first, perhaps suggesting that you point it to a domain that will only sell ABCWidgets if you also offer competitors products.
This story on The Register would be similar to your situation. A company selling official Star Wars fancy dress via Star-Wars.co.uk has lost the domain to Disney (who now own the rights to Star Wars) despite using the domain for a decade (the decision is currently in appeal).
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