Hi guys, i am about to launch a serious ecommerce site, and i want to make sure that the leader in my niche can't take my domain from me once i start using it, here is the story with a fictional domain exactly like the one i am using. the company's URL (and product name ) is : Italian Oil (they sell olive oil) and their brand name (even written on their bottles) is "Italian Oil" my domain is www [B]ItalianOliveOil [/B]dot [B]com[/B] can this competitor sue me later for using the words "italian" and "oil" in my domain ? or is it fine sine "italian" is an adjective and i have "olive" in between italian and oil. if someone has a clue, please let me know what you think. thanks!
In your fictional story, you could use ItalianOliveOil.com but, whether or not you can do with that some other term is dependent on that other term. That is not much help, but it is hard to give advice based on words you do not share.
Hi, thanks for your imput browntwn, the fictional story is an exact replica of the real case.. you practically just need to change "italian" into another country like "canadian" and you are almost done , it would be not so smart to share the real case in a popular forum like DP. thanks again!
As long as the name of the olive oil company is not involved, I don't think there should be any legal issues
The real question here is will users likely confuse your site with that of the mark holder, if any. And that's something that isn't necessarily answerable in an online forum. It depends on factors like how strong or known the mark is, people's perception, etc.
To be honest, as long as the name isnt registered and as long as you dont use it the same as its registered then it should be fine. For example if digitalpoint is registered you could get in trouble but if you use digital point or digital-point i dont think you can. Chances are it will be fine but the worst that could happen is a c&d and as long as you comply nothing further will probably come of it.
Trademarks don't have to be registered to exist. And the worst that can happen is one can lose their domain name or even be sued, though it's not really that often that sort of thing happens.
Bad advice from someone who has no clue about the law. There is nothing correct about your statement.
Im going off what i watched in a video over at shoemoney.com apparently if someone uses shoemoney in their adds they can get in trouble (adwords) where if they use shoe-money or shoe money nothing can be done.
While it's understandable how one would reach that conclusion, unfortunately that also goes to show how one can also mistakenly make such.
Google and adsense are just a private company, their policies are not law. Just because Google allows or dis-allows something does not make it legal or illegal.
Wow! I will be sooooooooooooooo unworthy if what you said turns out right, considering you haven't exactly explained how exactly you reached those conclusions.