THIS IS AN EXAMPLE I DON'T OWN ANY "galore.com" websites or domains.. My question is if I have 100+ sites that end with, for example, galore.com (lovegalore.com, businessgalore.com, etc.) Am I stepping on anybody elses rights that may have a ....galore.com website with a similar theme. And secondly, How could I stop others from creating a ...galore.com website and advertising that they are part of my network? Thanks
If the word (in your example, "galore") is a trade mark, you could be sued for using it. The same solution for your network: register that name as a trade mark.
Trademark/Servicemark law isn't something that can be fully explained in a post, but I'll try to give the basics. If a name can be trademarked, the first to use it, and continue to use it in a particular way, is the legal owner. No filing is required. No registration is necessary. A registration does establish when you started using the name and give you some rights on collecting legal fees. Just because a domain is available, you do not have automatic rights to use it. Some names cannot be trademarked. "Apple Pie" as a bakery item - you couldn't claim the rights to a generic term, but a unique usage would be eligible i.e. "Apple Pie" watches. Federal Trademarks are granted by classification (over 40 different). If you produce a line of watches under "Apple Pie" you wouldn't have rights to stop someone from producing a perfume line called "Apple Pie". "Am I stepping on anybody elses rights that may have a ....galore.com website with a similar theme." That is the key test - "Am I stepping on anybody elses rights". Often it comes down to what the content of the site is. Are you riding the goodwill of someone else? You also can add words to a trademark i.e. If "Apple Pie" is a trademark for a watch line, you can't use applepiewatchstore.com just because no one else registered it. "Amazon.info" could be used if the sites content was limited to talking about a river, but put anything to do with the retailer or selling products and it becomes infringement. "How could I stop others from creating a ...galore.com website and advertising that they are part of my network?" You are responsible for making sure you aren't infringing upon someone elses rights to a name. It isn't as simple as looking to see if they have a trademark (althought that is the first place you should check), you have to make sure a little business operateing out of a house with no business phone isn't using the name. This is called prior usage - and there is never a way to be 100% sure you aren't infringing upon a name. You can pay hundreds of dollars to have a search done, but it is not a guarantee. If no one else had used the name before you, you could file for a Federal Registration. This will cost $600 per classification plus attorney fees. There is a six year waiting period (1 yr notice +5 years) before the trademark can be granted and made uncontestable. During this six year wait, anyone can come forward and claim they were using the name before you. You basically need to sue someone who is infringing upon a trademark. If you have a Registered Trademark, you might be take their domain without going to court. To make the process even more complicated, misspellings and foreign spellings can be trademark infringement. Most infringement problems can be prevented using common sense. Don't try to be clever and use a well known trademark in your domain (Best-Amazon-Electronics.com) and asked yourself "if someone saw the name, is it possible they could think it might be owned by a well known company?"
What about if you started a website called diigg.com or even yigg.com that works in the same way as the trademarked digg.com. Are either of these trademark infringement? What about digfornews.com?
digg.com would certainly be trademark infringement if the site's content was anything similar to dig.com. Misspellings, phonetic spellings, and even foreign spellings can be trademark infringement. Even using your real name can be infringement. Mike Rowe (real name) found this out when he used his real name for "Mike Rowe Soft . com". yigg probably wouldn't be as black and white, it depends on if it appeared you were trying to ride the goodwill of another trademark. The situation you want to avoid is having a large company "think" you are infringing upon their name. An infringement suit can run hundreds of thousands in legal fees and even if you won, you wouldn't get your legal fees awarded to you (in the US). A large company with deep pockets can drain you financially if they feel you are infringing upon their trademark. Trademark law doesn't let you benefit from a trademark that someone else has developed. If you came up with the idea from a trademark, it's a good bet its infringement. The same with trying to come up with a domain that you hope people might see and associate it with a known trademark. The best way to avoid trademark issues is to come up with an original name that doesn't sound or look like anything similar to a site that is going to have the same type of content in it.
MJewel, I noticed that you have been answering tons of these types of questions around the forums. Thanks for the help. I'd like to have you clarify one more thing. My last example was about digg.com, where users submit the content which is voted on by the community and displayed if popular. So digg.com trademarked the name "digg" for "providing online news, information, and public commentary; electronic publishing services, namely, publication of text and graphics based on voting results of online users." If someone founded a different site, with a similar site concept and method for content generation for say photos, called digforphotos.com, would this really be trademark infringement on the term "digg"? The possibly offending site does not contain the trademarked name in its url (because it does not have a second "g") and has added 2 additional words (forphotos) onto what seems like a generic term "dig". If you think this is trademark infringement, then essentially, digg.com was able to trademark both "digg" and "dig" which does not seem fair, especially since the "dig" site is for a different purpose (photos). Thanks for the help.
Trademark law isn't always black and white. You don't need to have both "g's" to be infringement (but it's better). Adding words to a trademark term DOES NOT make the infrigement go away. "DIGG" + anything else .com or any other tld can be infringement - especially if it overlaps or is similar to what they are doing. They don't own the exclusive rights to use "Dig" but they can certainly argue intent in the right circumstance. Misspellings are often used in trademark/servicemark cases. If your content/service is going to overlap theirs, my guess is that you would have problems using only one "g". To get a proper opinion, there would need to be research done into prior usage. These searches usually run a few hundred and then an attorney who specializes in intellectual property rights could give you an opinion of your particular usuage. What they can't tell you is whether you have a hot head running "insert company name" who is willing to spend a ton of money because "they think" you are infringing upon their name. I was involved in a similar case with such a person of a very large retailer. Their position was absurd, but that didn't stop them from trying. You can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in a dispute. I spent about $30K in legal fees before they dropped their claim (luckly it happened early) - and of course, you don't get to recover those. It is always better to use a name that has a very small chance of problems - especially if you plan on putting a lot of time and effort into the site. You don't want to spend all that time only to be forced to give up the name - or worse, forced to pay damages.