Starting anything without checking for trademarks can put you in trouble at some point of time or other. It may be possible that in your country the trademark may not be available but somewhere in other part of the world some third person may have registered a trademark that collides with your name. A trademark owner can claim your domain if it means confusingly similar or infringes their trademark. Some trademark owners are very strict and forbit/dont allow their registered mark to be mixed with other word combinations. Be careful ! Doing a initial trademark search is a must before registering a domain name of your choice. Always do a preliminary trademark search before you * Registering a Domain Name * Registering Business Names * Selecting New Product or Brand Names Initially it would cost more than $1000 to do a official trademark search through an attorney. The best less expensive way is to do it for yourself. Search the trademark databases available in different countries online although it is not 100% foolproof. I have published URLs to only specific important countries, the complete formation available at WIPO Trademarks Database site. List of Trademark Databases Online Madrid International Registrations http://www.wipo.int/madrid/en/services Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (CommunityTrademarks) http://oami.eu.int/CTMOnline/RequestManager/en_SearchBasic Australia http://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/trademarks/search_index.shtml Austria http://www.patent.bmvit.gv.at Brazil http://www.inpi.gov.br Canada http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/cipo/trademarks/search/tmSearch.do Chile http://www.dpi.cl/tapa.asp?cuerpo=486 Czech Republic http://isdvapl.upv.cz/servlet/page?_pageid=82,110&_dad=portal30&_schema=PORTAL30 Estonia http://www.epa.ee/client/default.asp?wa_id=438 Finland http://tavaramerkki.prh.fi/ France http://www.icimarques.com/ (access subject to payment) Germany https://dpinfo.dpma.de Hong Kong http://ipsearch.ipd.gov.hk/tmlr/jsp/index.html Hungary http://elajstrom.hpo.hu/HPOAdatbazisok/hophandler?lang=EN Ireland http://www.patentsoffice.ie/eregister/Query/TMQuery.asp Israel http://patentim.justice.gov.il/db1.htm Japan http://www.ipdl.inpit.go.jp/homepg_e.ipdl Mexico http://marcas.impi.gob.mx (access subject to payment) New Zealand http://www.iponz.govt.nz/search/cad/dbssiten.main Poland http://www.uprp.pl/patentwebaccess/databasechoose.aspx?language=english Republic of Korea http://kipricd2.kipris.or.kr/eng/ Russian Federation http://www.fips.ru/ensite/dbs/dbs.htm Slovakia http://www.upv.sk Slovenia http://www2.uil-sipo.si/dse.htm Spain http://www.oepm.es/ Sweden http://www.prv.se/eng/trademarks/index_rseng.html Switzerland https://www.swissreg.ch/srclient/faces/jsp/start.jsp United Kingdom http://www.patent.gov.uk/tm.htm United States of America http://www.uspto.gov/main/trademarks.htm I searched online for countless hours to locate the online trademark databases of different countries. Just a thought that i could share my findings with DP people. Any compliments much appreciated as it would encourage me to work more.
Nice article. But just an extra note that trademark registration is not needed if one can demonstrate common law trademark rights. Okay, an extra extra note: a few attorneys I know who specialize in this sort of thing tell me the "best" trademark search engine is the big G itself.
Interesting point you made. can you shed more light on this? does that mean i dont have to spend $$$ to register for trademark.
Dont think that if trademark is not registered in your country you can take advantage and misuse the trademark. Its a wrong idea. As far as i remember there is a madrid convention and if our country is a member then the TM rights automatically applicable in all member countries of madrid convention. This is my understanding, but again i may be wrong.
Checking for a TM also depends on what you want to do with the domain name. Just have some common sense about it and you should be fine.
Common sense is a trait we all need to use occasionally...I know your j/k'ing, but you could use windows....(if by god it was available) but consider modifying it, like customwindows, qualitywindows, windowrestoration etc etc. People generally dont talk about it, but it seems that most dont want more than two words in a .com....if you go to three (such as verynicewindows.com) you will significantly lose value and brandability...
Imagine once you have developed your business and then somebody claims they want your domain because they are trademark owners. It is good to know something that knowing nothing.