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View Full Version : Unsure weather a domain infringes on trademark



CarlU
09-23-2006, 04:10 AM
After reading a few articles about Domain Registration and Trademark, I've become worried that my domain name that I want would breach trademark laws.

The 1st part of the domain name includes "ebayers" and the second word kind of refers to ownership, like www.ebayersroad.com, at first I didn't think there was any problem because the domain refers to ebayers who are of course the people and not ebay the website itself.

Another thing of note is that www.ebayersthatsuck.com has been in contact with ebay but as far as I know has had no problem with any trademark infrigment apart from their logo.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, Thanks.

billiousness
11-07-2006, 05:45 PM
I registered a domain once with eBay in it and less than two weeks later I got cease and desist letter.

demosfen
11-07-2006, 06:09 PM
If your site will have something to do with Ebay and you will be making money off their name, they can take your domain away. You could argue that 'ebayer' is sort of a commonly used word, like xerox for example, but I don't know if it would fly in court or would be worth trouble. Ebay has lots of money and lawyers
Got a link to ebayersthatsuck.com story?

s2kinteg916
11-07-2006, 06:16 PM
depends on the company and how anal they are about their trademark.... Ebay is one of the ones that will hunt u down... so is geico..

SandDancer
11-23-2006, 10:38 AM
I saw a programme on TV last night and it just had a glimpse of someone using Ebay. At the end of the programme it came up with a long statement saying about ownership of the images - I couldn't believe it went into so much detail.

Funnily enough I've also been looking into the trademark issues surrounding website names too. I found two useful sites in the UK were the businesslink one and the patent office one. The bottom line was they said you could infringe copyright and could even infringe 'implied copyright' if a company has been around for a long time before you.