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Avoid Trademark Infringement When You Choose a Domain Name
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Sometimes similar domain names can cause customers to buy different goods or services than what they intended to buy. For instance, suppose, on the recommendation of a friend, you decide to purchase Lee's famous Flamebrain barbecue sauce, which is sold only on the Web. You intend to type "flamebrain.com" into your browser but accidentally enter "flamerbrain.com" instead. You get a website run by Henry, who has both copied Lee's idea to offer a barbecue sauce for sale on the Web and, with a very minor variation, the name of Lee's sauce. You order two bottles, completely unaware that you ordered the wrong product from the wrong website. You get a barbecue sauce that is much inferior to Lee's famous sauce.
Protected Trademarks
Customer confusion matters only if a domain name that's similar to the one you want to use is a protected trademark. To be protected, a trademark must be distinctive. A name may be distinctive because it is made up (chumbo.com for an online software store), arbitrary in the context of its use (apple.com for computer products), fanciful (ragingbull.com for investment advice) or suggestive of the underlying product or service (salon.com for an online magazine). If a domain name uses surnames, geographic names or common words that describe some aspect of the goods or services sold on the website (healthanswers.com for online health information) it is ineligible for trademark protection unless the owner can demonstrate distinction through substantial sales and advertising. If the trademark owner has been able to register a name with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, it is probably distinctive.
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