Hi, I'm in desperate need of help and hope i could get some advice on this. There's this really successful forum in my country previously, i do not wish to mention its name, it drew about 1.5million hits a month last time. it was active in the period from 2002-2008. and it was run by a IT student. in year 2006, a giant company in my country bought over the forum, it ran for 2 years and has since been closed. The domain has been idle and has sat at a PR3 even as a dormant domain. I've found another domain extension and has registered that same name. From my research, alot of users are unhappy that the forum has been closed 2 years ago, and there was a substantial amount of supporters. I intend to reopen the forum, with the same name and i was wondering if i would be met with any legal issues or not. When i searched the internet archives for the olden days of the forum, the forum logo has a "TM" beside it. trademark. thus will i encounter any issues if i were to use the same name again? what does TM mean in this case, is it just the logo? can i register a TM for my new site? i can afford the admin expenses i just wanna steer clear of any possible legal implications.. Any kind soul outthere who can help? if you have any questions, please feel free to ask me here! My main idea is to build on its already established and well known name. but on an entity who is no longer existing.
a) It depends on the actual name. b) Trademarks need continuous use (and in the US, they don't even need to be registered), but laws vary depending on the country, the time period to be considered non-use could be a number of years (it is 3 years in the US). c) If you don't want any "possible legal implications" - why not use another name? Just because a domain name isn't being used, it doesn't mean there aren't trademark rights. You don't need a website to have trademark rights to a name. If you want to reduce your risk, find a local IP attorney and consult with them. They can run a trademark search for a couple hundred dollars.