Quote:
Originally Posted by ATL
OK experts, here is a question for you.
Say (for example) I owned abc.com and the owner of ab.com said I am infringing upon his domain name of ab.com Since his copyrighted word of 'ab' is in my domain. Personally I think it's total bullshit but he tried.
Now my question, would this be true?
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I am not a lawyer but having dealt with trademark issues before I can relay some advice from our lawyers on the subject. What you want to look into is the difference between a
weak mark and a
strong mark.
Strong marks are arbitrary and fanciful (think amazon, radioSHACK), whereas weak marks tend to be descriptive (think AutoParts Inc, HousePainters Inc, etc). The term Amazon has nothing to do with what their business is so it is considered fanciful, making it a strong mark. The same with RadioShack, the shack is arbitrary and fanciful, this makes it a strong mark.
AutoZone used to be AutoShack until RadioShack won a trademark case against them. So there you can see how a strong mark can easily carry across industries.
So this really depends entirely on what the AB and ABC are in your examples. Does this company have a strong mark or a weak mark.
One thing to do is to find their trademark, try searching for it
uspto.gov/trademarks/process/search/
When trademarks are granted they are sometimes granted with provisions and limitations, finding the trademark grant will show you if any of these exist.
This should give you an idea of the law surrounding trademarks. Hope it helps, good luck
PS: If you know a good business lawyer you could probably get them to look at this for a small charge, though their hourly rates are generally somewhat expensive this shouldn't take much time to advise you on. I would take no action on this until you have been advised by a lawyer. If you don't have a lawyer yet, one good way to find one is word of mouth, got any friends with their own businesses? Ask them who they use.