Here's a story of how you an end up losing a domain name that you registered first, to a company that came into existence many years AFTER you registered your domain name. Suppose you register a domain called Foo.com in 2010. You don't do anything with the domain -- it is simply parked, and generates no revenue. Then, in 2012, a company called New York Foo comes into existence, and they trademark the name "New York Foo" , and then they enter into business. Now, legally, they can turn around and sue you for trademark infringement and demand that you give your domain to them. Why? First, because in the US, the right to use a mark goes to whomever FIRST USED IT IN COMMERCE. Not the person who first registered a domain. So, the fact that the company was the FIRST to USE the phrase "foo" in commerce, gives them the right to it, even if you REGISTERED it first. Now you can argue that the name of the company is "New York Foo" where as your domain is merely "foo.com" and so they're different. But, the "New York" part is ignored by the courts when making decisions about who owns a mark, because geographic descriptors are considered to be generic and not part of the mark. So, basically "New York Foo Company" can take away the domains of anyone who has the word "Foo" in their domain. This means foo.com as well as LondonFoo.com, GermanyFoo.com, MaimiFoo.com etc. So the lesson is, if you own a domain name, merely registering it with ICANN is not enough to protect it. You should also USE it in commerce as quickly as possible, so no one else can trademark the same word/phrase and start using it first, in which case the law gives THEM the right to the domain too.
This is wrong information. While merely owning a domain establishes no trademark rights, the prior existence of the domain shows it was not a bad faith registration. Trademarks do not give exclusive right to a mark, but rather certain usage (classification). You would have to infringe upon the usage of a mark holder - and merely owning a domain PRIOR to their usage is not infringement. What you can't do is start to use the domain in a manner that infringes upon their usage. Registering a domain AFTER a mark is in use does open the door to a bad faith registration.
Sorry, this is RIGHT information -- it happened to me and I went to law school. The question of "bad faith registration" is only relevant when there is a dispute that falls under the Uniform Domain Dispute Resolution Policy -- it does NOT apply when trademarks are involved. The person who uses a word or phrase in commerce first and has a trademark always wins over a person who merely registers a domain name but doesn't use it in commerce.
Trademarks don't expire as long as they're still being used in commerce. Some famous trademarks are a hundred years or older.
Wrong. Trademark rights are created according to usage. Having a Federal registration or common law trademark does not automatically give you exclusive rights to a mark - only for a classification. There can be many different owners of a trademark on the same word (apple, myspace, etc). I don't care if you went to law school. Most attorney's know little about intellectual property rights unless it is their specialty. If you owned apple.com - Apple Corp has no rights to the domain unless you are using the domain in a manner that infringes upon their usage rights. A classic example is nissan.com - which has been in litigation for years with the auto maker - and the individual still owns the domain to this day. Of course if you are going up a large company with deep pockets, they can try and outspend the other party to take the domain by default - and it has happened on occasion, but that is due the the party not having or wanting to spend funds to fight the case. Your claim that all a company needs to do to take a domain is to register a trademark for a domain they want is false and misleading. There are certainly legal options to prevent reverse domain hijacking. See 15 U.S.C. 1114(2)(D)(v).
If you have not gone to http://nissan.com/ check it out. I support the owner of http://nissan.com/ the owner should do a better job monetizing his domain, I'm sure he could make some money from type-in traffic.