Have you ever registered for copyright/trademark for your domain name alone? I am not talking about suffix, just the name of domain. If so, how can you do so to register for it? Because I am currently looking for how to register a copyright and trademark of my own domain name and was wondering how much it would cost me? And also, my main concern is that if I registered copyright/trademark for the name do I have the right to force the name that I registered copyright/trademark for to transfer to my own account such as some services that already has my user name but it's my own creation of name so wondering if I registered, can I force services to transfer it to me or what? Of course with proof of the registration. And also, should I get attorney/lawyer to look into this or can I do it on my own to save me a lot more of money that way? Thanks!
This is a trademark issue - nothing to do with a copyright. If you can prove that you were the first to use the mark in commerce for a particular usage AND someone else came along after and infringed upon this usage, you may have a case for gaining the domain. You are looking at spending thousands of dollars - much more if it is contested. You certainly need to retain an intellectual property rights attorney. It is not something you want to attempt to do yourself.
I agree with mjewel that you need to retain an attorney, at least to do know that you have done it right. Anyone can go online and file a trademark application; you don't need to be an attorney. But unless you understand what it means to obtain a trademark in a specific class, and unless you know how to draft a description of the goods/services covered by the trademark that gives you any meaningful coverage, you may have paid the filing fee and gotten very little protection in return for your investment. If you ever try to enforce your trademark in court, you may find that your shortcuts has cost you thousands of extra dollars in attorneys fees or, worse, given you a virtually worthless mark. It's better that you should spend some money now and get the professional advice you need to give you the best protection available.
Alright, thanks. Seems to be a lot of hassle to register my goods/service for trademark is a lot of hassle, how about registering for copyright though? Honestly, I am just looking for to prove some businesses that the service is my own and also have the rights to send in such Google service to ask for terminal of user names that belongings to me, which I have tried force Google to do so but couldn't because they sent me e-mail back saying I need some sort of copyright registration and left a website for copyright (copyright.org - to register/show proof), I was mainly wondering if I register it then do I have the power to have people to transfer/terminate the user names that belongs to me? And of course, the name belongs to me in first place as I am running the service for few years now. I have searched to make sure that my copyrighted name isn't registered in the database of copyrights and it isn't, but I would like to do so, that way I have more power to require removal/terminate/transfer to my account from few of services that currently registered by somebody else as user name only but isn't their service though.
So that's pretty much all I can do is to keep from other people using my business name is registering for trademark? Thought seeing something on copyright website stating that copyright would be proving that it belongs me and I have the rights to do with the business name of anywhere including requesting other service to either terminate its name on their service, such as forum, social network websites and others or at least transfer to me, at least to my account? Along with its name on product or anywhere that says exactly my business name that I originally created in first place.
A copyright is different from a trademark, so ignore any advice regarding copyrights for your trade name - and you should probably do some research so you know the difference. There are common law trademarks in the US, no registration required, however these social network sites are not going to take the time to research your claim of a trademark - some might even require a court order. That is why you need to register it - and just because you created it, it doesn't mean that someone else wasn't using the mark in a similar manner prior to you. Searching the uspto.gov site is only a start and doesn't mean you have rights to the mark. It takes approximately 6 years for a registration to become "cast in stone" (except in the event of fraud). During this period another person can contest or cancel your mark. You really need to consult with an IP attorney. Protecting a trademark and enforcing unauthorized usage does not come automatic and it can be very costly. Unless you are prepared to go through a registration and/or spend large sums in legal fees - you aren't going to have very much success in protecting your mark or preventing others from using it.
Well, honestly what I am struggling is to get few of other users on couple of blogs such as Blogspot to remove its subdomain name from someone and either terminate it or transfer it to my account since I am already on blogspot, but couldn't register my brand name as someone else has already registered recently and I had been running its business name ever since '07. Odd thing is that Google service told me that they cannot do anything unless my name is in copyright database which they provided me copyright.org link pointing out the registration/database but what's more odd is that Google was kind enough to transfer YouTube that has my business name that was registered someone else and transferred it to my account immediately but not Blogspot and it's coming from the same service that was willing to transfer the user name who has tons of videos that was registered by somebody else with my business name yet have no hesistate to transfer the user name to my Google account and remove all of several videos from someone else? Of course I told Google for the first time that it was my own name and which provided them to my website for information and the whois on its domain and that's when they rather immediately transferred YouTube user name to my account, and I did same thing for Blogspot since it asks basically same questions and yet, this time they told me only option I can do is to contact that person who's using my business name as subdomain on blogspot and to discuss about the deals and along with providing me the link in my e-mail where I filled a form for trademark issue. YouTube User name from Google: Success. Blogspot username/subdomain from Google: Failed. But yes, I do know about the trademark/copyright laws and I practically have the rights to it, but the issue here is that I want to have more power to it. Thank you all for the helps!
Don't use others name, what you mean? This is about the others use my business name. Someone else is using a name that's exact as my business name which is what I am trying to deal with in trying to get either terminate or transfer to my account.
Someone will claim they were using the trademark before you and it depends on how the hosting provider wants to handle it. If it's a paying customer on a hosting provider, they may just look the other way and ignore you. If it's a forum or somebody who doesn't know anything about the law, they will probably rule in your favor. It's one thing to have a trademark. It's another thing to have the power and willingness, not to mention the money for lawyers, to enforce it.
Well, it's not about hosting. It's about the name itself, as there's some personalized clothing and others, including business banking account for the company name which is under mine and all. But however, I created the domain same name of my business name. Since I did, I am more strict on anyone else infringement my business name since '07. But again, it's outside business name, but now it's both. You're right about the power and willingness, just like I battled for YouTube user name that someone was using which was belongs to me in first place, originally. But just can't believe it with my own eyes that Google won't agree with me to transfer its name to my account that were created as subdomain on blogspot by someone else but yet, Google was willing to transfer my business name to my account from any products... Except blogspot. But since you say how hosting provider handles it, what you mean by that? I never heard that statement, gets me very curious now. Because they only deal with me regarding its business name that I am founder of, originally of course. I am against blogspot at this moment but everything that had my business name was VERY successful. But again, remember that it was outside business. But now it's outside and on the internet since I learned about registering domain, coding, etc.
A domain name registration acquires no trademark rights. A business registration acquires no trademark rights. What you need is to be the very first to use use the mark in commerce, in a particular classification. You do NOT have exclusive rights to a mark even if you were the first to use it. There can be many different owners on the same trademark - i.e. there are different trademark owners for "apple" and "myspace" each have different usage rights. I doubt that Blogspot would even do anything even if you were to get a Federal Registration of the mark. As far as I know, there has never been a successful trademark lawsuit on a subdomain. There was a lawsuit with blogspot and jews for jesus - yet it never went to court - and such an action would require thousands of dollars in legal fees. If you really want to pursue this, you are going to need to retain a good IP attorney. Edit: If you are talking about joshiesworld on blogspot, you have no claim to the subdomain. It was created in 2005 (Before your use) and is a non-commercial usage. Forget about it.
2005? The whois said that it was registered in '07 which is when I bought. But how you find out that it was created in 2005, though? But no, it wasn't about JoshiesWorld. It's for ATVAddict. (And also they have it on cafepress, but I don't even know when someone created that thing, cause I didn't made them). But since you bought up JoshiesWorld, now I am more interested to ask. Since I own it now and all, including all TLDs wouldn't it be my rights at this moment? But yeah, I pretty much ran out of options here since I have no options to try, as this was why I was hoping to get some answers from people that is more knowledge than me about this case. Again, thank you and the rest of you all for answering! Much appreciated.
The JoshiesWorld on blogspot was started in 2005. No, you don't own the rights to it - as I said, owning a domain gives you no rights to a word. You may have established common law rights for a particular usage/classification but there are over 40 different trademark classifications in the US alone. The atvaddict on blogspot is not being used in a manner that infringes upon your usage, and it seem to be used in a descriptive manner. You need to discuss the problems of trying to enforce a mark with a descriptive term/phrase. I would personally move on and forget about it. I've had a lot of experience in IP lawsuits and know from experience that spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on minor issues like this are very possible. The first thing you should do it contact a trademark attorney and try to get a federal registration. It should run about $1K give or take a few hundred dollars.
Since you had experience similar to this then I definitely take your words for it. I should move on and not worry about it. The reason why I was jumping at trademark and copyright was because seeing that websites such as FaceBook and MySpace has trademark/copyright yet I don't, not much of difference as its domain that's why it was confusing for me. I wasn't so sure about ATVAddict or ATV-Addict, it was familiar but it had ATV Addict somewhere, though. But ATV Addict is a organization, as numerous amounts of riders (four wheeler) is in the club/group, having it branded on clothes, and everything but I am the creator of it though. While seeing a subdomain that has ATV Addict words mixed with other character/letters in the subdomain kind of upset me. Since I had confirmed that all of my riders didn't do it. (This is the real life club organization where everyone has event to ride together), but the problem is that I also has ATVAddict as domain. But since ATV Addict is the organization, would it matters to have trademark/copyright since it was created out of internet's world? But I have no really clue about trademark/copyright but could you give me ideas what could work to be able to have trademark/copyright to it? Thanks again!
To protect your name, we're talking about trademarks. It has nothing to do with a copyright. Copyright would apply if someone was copying your logo or pages or your text. Marks that can be descriptive or generic in use can be weaker marks, if they are able to trademark at all. For instance, you can't trademark "apple" as a fruit or "apple pie" as a desert. You can trademark "apple" as a computer brand as that not the common use of the term (i.e. no one thought of a computer when they heard "apple" until apple corp came along and made it a brand). A good IP attorney can perform a search for possible prior or conflicting use of a mark. It isn't as simple as just checking the uspto.gov database. Filing for a trademark cost around $300, but if you fill it out wrong, it will get rejected and you have to start over again. That is why you should use an attorney or do a lot of research to make sure you know what you are doing. Owing a domain name or a business isn't proof of a trademark. Someone else could have been using something similar before you without you knowing about it. It doesn't matter, first to use in commerce establishes rights to a mark for a particular usage. If you go around demanding people stop using a mark, you may find yourself hit with a C&D to stop using the mark based on their prior use. They could even sue you for damages. A registration establishes a date and can serve as a deterrent to others. Adsense.com was in use long before google even thought of it, but because there was prior usage of "adsense" by a company other than the domain owner (and google acquired those rights - i.e. goodwill) they were able to take the domain. Unless you have someone who is taking substantial business from you, or you have a lot of money to throw around, I would forget about trying to enforce a possible common law mark with some small user - and one that has a possible descriptive use defense. As I said before, if you don't want to spend $1K or so for a registration, you certainly don't want to get involved in a legal dispute. You can easily spend tens of thousands of dollars before even going to court. You are looking at six figures and up to take it through the courts. I am not an attorney, but have many years of experience in IP disputes and have spent considerable sums of money in legal fees even though I have never lost a court case. The only people who really win in these disputes are the attorneys.