Does anyone see future problems with.... I made a domain with my future LLC name about 2 months ago. Today, i did a google search and found that someone has taken the singular version of my companies name. Honestly the website isn't too important but I don't want to run into legal issues in the future. I was the first one with the domain name and do know why this guy would want to make a domain so similar to mine. What would you do if you were in my situation?
As long as the registration dates from the two domains are avaible and yours is longer than his/hers your legally right. Just head over to whois.com and compare his/her details with yours. I mean that would be the logical thing, unless law and logic doesn't go together..
Heh, the law's struggling to catch up. Link2swim06, consult an intellectual property lawyer if you think the party in question intends to somehow ride on your work. But unless you have any kind of trademark right, coupled with their infringing it somehow, there's not much that can be done.
Domain registration date can be used to argue against a bad faith registration claim, but does not give you any trademark rights to the name - neither would an LLC registration for "future" use. If this other person starts using the domain for the same type of usage as you "intend" - they will have priority trademark usage rights even though their registration date was after yours. A trademark does not give you unlimited rights to a name - they are usually limited to a type of usage (i.e. web design, jewelry, etc) so not being a famous mark, you probably won't be able to do anything about another site using a similar name for something entirely unrelated. The first thing you need to do is search for any previous use of this name in a similar usage (not just a website). You also need to be aware that similar, phonetic, and any name that might cause confusion is going to be a potential problem. You can use google and the USPTO to start, but if nothing is found, you should consider paying for a trademark search. Establish usage. Come up with a logo or graphic that has the trademark and put some type of content related to your intended usage on the site ASAP. Consider filing for a federal trademark registration. While not absolutely needed to protect your rights, there are benefits. If you're serious about this company, you might want to pay a trademark attorney to handle the search and filing (there are some types of marks that cannot be trademarked). It will probably cost around $1,000 to $1,500 to do this.
Did you use the name in commerce, or a variation of that name, before you registered the domain name? Did you put a web site up on the domain soon after registering? Two months is not that long. You will need to provie the registrant knew you existed and sought to benefit from your trademark rights and web traffic when they registered the domain in question.