The majority of speculators claim this increase in domain disputes is a positive sign for the domaining industry. Increased interest in domain names represent increased demand in the domaining industry. And when demand rises, prices also go along for the ride. Many reason and interpret this data through this logic, seeing it as a symbol that can mean only good things for our industry.

However, one cannot accurately interpret a piece of data without looking at the plethora of interpretations a number can have. I am of the belief that the increase in domain disputes symbolizes absolutely nothing for domainers. In fact, it, if anything, means something bad for the domaining industry. I attribute the increase in domain disputes to companies’ growing interest in protecting trademarks and brands as well as their increasing awareness of internet law. These 2 factors yield high demand for a small segment of the domain industry – domain owners who infringe on others’ trademarks, brands and/or names. This does not mean increased demand in the domaining industry for domainers all over the world.

Is the 24% increase in domain disputes being made into a false hope for domainers? Make sure to submit your comments below!

While many people can barely afford a lawyer in the first place, for those of you who can afford a lawyer for transactions or lawsuits, you shouldn’t only consider lawyers known amongst the domaining industry. This isn’t meant to insult any of the firms who do often blog about domain transactions and trademark, but do you really want a lawyer who has that much time on there hands. Normally, a lawyer with a lot of free time and few clients isn’t the lawyer you want representing you. That probably means he or she is not the best lawyer in the world.

Of course, there are plenty of exceptions. Take Traverse Legal for example. You’ll see a blog post from them every once in a while on Domaining.com. They happen to get a lot of clients, and somehow squeeze in the time to post a blog post. There are plenty of other exceptions, but nonetheless, it’s something to think about.

I just think many intellectual property lawyers from big and small U.S. firms who don’t necessarily specialize in domains, but have tried cases including domain names, go overlooked a lot. And you shouldn’t only be looking into the names that Elliot listed on his blog post, but doing some research and calling some firms that you’ve heard of before and talking to general intellectual property lawyers. You’d be surprised, you might be able to afford them. Rates are going down, so now’s the time to get hooked up with a good attorney if you need one. Elliot wrote a well-researched post, but you need to be the one to take his research 1 step forward.

You probably don’t recognize the device on the left. It’s a mobile, touchscreen device that Fujitsu came out with in 2002. What’s special about this device? It’s called the iPad. For those of you not keeping up with recent news, Apple recently announced their new portable  “smart screen”. Clearly due to a lack of thorough research on Apple’s part, they named this new device the iPad.

Fujitsu has only stated that they’re discussing further actions at this time. In my opinion, if the people in charge of making a decision watch the news and are aware of what happened in 2007 between Cisco and Apple, than they will absolutely choose to pursue Apple on a trademark infringement claim. When Cisco sued Apple in 2007 over trademark infringement for Apple’s iPhone, Apple made a large settlement agreement with Cisco.

At this point, it’d be very unrealistic, inefficient and costly for Apple to start from rename its product and market it all over again. Sometimes, you just need to take the bullet. And that’s what Apple will unfortunately have to do in this case. This does however go to show the importance of doing your research before creating or naming a website, product or service.

I’m under the assumption that Apple didn’t do the necessary research when it came to naming their product. As an investor and big fan of Apple, it’s disappointing to see the company that I thought had it all figured out, fail to do proper research. I will say this however. Apple could have very well intionally named their product the iPad with their reason being that all of the brandable names for their product were taken. It’s almost a lose-win situation no matter what they did, so they figure they’ll be able to settle a trademark and have a good name for their product.

I’d like to hear your theories. How could a company as big as apple commit trademark infringement as they clearly have? Make sure to submit your comments below.

When a domain name is deceiving to consumers, often times companies like Apple can sue for trademark infringement. And we all know what happened last time Apple sued a domain name owner for trademark infringement. They kicked some serious ass and got the domains they wanted.

Lets say that I buy LPhone.com and make it into a brand called Love Phone where singles can talk to each other. While that is completely irrelevent to the iPhone, visitors to LPhone.com can still easily get confused and think that the Love Phone brand is associated with the iPhone. A disclaimer on the homepage might help the owner’s case, but nonetheless, the name looks so similar to iPhone.com.

Do you think that this is a no win situation for the buyer of this domain? I’ll tell you this, there’s absolutely no chance Apple will make the owner of the domain name an offer. If anything, the owner would be taken to court quicker than a tiger chases his pray if Apple wanted in the first place. So if you had that thought in mind, save yourself some money and don’t bid on this name. My recommendation is it’s awfully dangerous to own this domain due to the trademark infringement aspect. Submit your comments below, I’d love to hear them.

Welcome to the world of trademark infringement, where people can be sued left and right. Trademark infringement is one of the most common disputes amongst domain names that often result in the filing of a UDRP, or a related dispute resolution process. To sum up the definition of trademark infringement, it’s basically when you profit, or have intent to profit off of another person’s trademark. A trademark could be anything from a famous person’s name to the name of a toy or company.

Lets say you own a .com, that is registered by other companies in another extension such as .net or .org. Many people would think to just send an email to the company that owns your .com domain in another extension. But this is where you could get into some trouble. Although you most likely registered your .com domain name earlier than the person with your domain name in another extension, if they have a trademark for the name and you offer to sell your .com name to them, you’re still trying to profit off of their trademark.

Keep in mind that this can sort of go both ways. If you own a domain name with an extension other than a .com, and you offer it to the owner of the .com domain name, that’s still infringing on his trademark. And in this case it’s even clearer that you’re being even further intrusive on the .com owner’s trademark. The reason for this is because you most likely registered that .net domain name after the owner registered his .com domain name, therefore in this case, you’re coming into the picture afterwards rather than before. It just makes it that much more obvious that you had intent to profit of the owners trademark.

Now let me throw another situation at you that I recently came across. I picked up a domain name on the GoDaddy aftermarket, and I saw that the .com version of the domain name that I picked up was being used. I looked up if the owner of the .com domain had a trademark for it. Luckily, there were no trademarks pending, active, or inactive for the domain I picked up. But I did email the owner of the .com domain to ask for their permission to use the domain I purchased, just to avoid any disputes. One of my biggest beliefs is to do whatever you can to avoid being brought into the legal system as a defendant. And so some might call me crazy for emailing the owner of the .com domain, but nonetheless, I wanted to avoid a potential dispute. On top of that, another interesting twist to my situation was the .com owner was the old owner of this domain, and had let it drop. So, all of this added together equaled a potential dispute. I am happy to say that I received a response saying it was perfectly fine.

My main point here is that if you’re going to own a domain that is or could potentially be infringing upon another’s trademark, don’t email them saying you want to sell it. If anything, wait for them to come to you. I look forward to your comments and questions.