Definition Of Established Business?

Hi,

If a company owns multiple domains which they used for their advertising network, do the domains used by the companies considered established businesses?

Like for example, if I was purchase the domain GreenAmazon.com and started a web directory, but an advertising network has yellowamazon.com and orangeamazon.com, in a directory format (similar to parking domains) displaying identical sponsored featured links. Considering that yellowamazon.com and orangeamazon.com have identical listings and are owned by the same company as advertising portals , would these two domain names be considered an established TM business?

Would I be in violation of a TM infringement if I used GreenAmazon.com as a directory?

Thanks in advance,

-DigiP

 

A domain name is not considered a business. In your example, your use of GreenAmazon may or may not be infringement. If either of the other names was registered as a trademark it would certainly be infringement. If they weren't then it would depend on whether those names had been used in business by the other company. If all they had ever done with them was to park the domains then it would probably not be considered infringement. The simple act of registering a domain does not give that domain trademark status. However, even if the domains are parked, if the other business had used the names in advertising or in some other business sense then it could very well be seen as infringement.

 

Hi,

Thanks for the reply.

Do you think it's a good idea to use Yahoo & Google as a measuring stick for whether or not a domain name has been used for business purposes? Like if I a search for the domain name and no search result comes up except maybe the URL for the home page. Wouldn't that be a good indicator that the domain hasn't been used for business purposes? Especially if the business is related to the internet such as a web directory.

Thanks for in advance,
Digip

 

It is one indicator, but certainly not a complete one. In this case it might be enough though, as you stated the other websites are supposedly interenet related.