Saturday 23 January 2010

Role Of Trademarks In Cyberspace

By Alex Finn

In this era of extensive internet use, trademark laws gain particular significance in the cyber world, particularly with respect to trademarks for domain names. This is quite critical in light of the fact that your domain name communicates your identity and also highlights your services to the consumers.

A domain name that has been trademarked not only enables you to sue persons infringing your mark and making use of it as their own but also protects you from being looked upon as the owner of their website that might be using an identical or remarkably similar domain name as yours.

However, you should undertake a search for presence of similar domain names to see if your proposed mark is violating any of the already existing ones. Your research must ensure the fact that your trademark is unique and does not resemble others in sound, meaning or spelling. It is crucial to trademark a domain only after properly confirming that it does not infringe upon any trademarks.

For attaining this, it is advisable to hire the services of a cyber law attorney, who can guide you in cyber related trademark issues. This will not only help you avoid infringement claims but also save you from possible disputes.

You should be mindful of the fact that the domain name you are intending to trademark must be more than an ordinary web address to bring users to your site. It must be an identity that differentiates your services from others.

In addition to violation of domain names, keyword infringement has come up as a new problem in virtual domains, which means infringement of original trademarks by their unauthorized use as keywords in advertisements on Yahoo, Google etc with a purpose to puzzle the consumers or to dilute the genuine trademark.

Making use of such a keyword is not tantamount to a violation if the promotional ads result in boosting sales of the goods or services behind the original trademark, but it is an infringement if the advertiser starts making use of it as a tool for competing against the trademark owner.

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