Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I own a retail store website (website ends in .COM).  I`ve been in business for 7 years and have owned my domain for just as long.  About 2 years ago, a site with the same name (but ending in .ORG) appeared.  So far, it does not appear they are directly selling anything, but they run a Community Forum (doesn`t appear to be hugely successful, based on the number of postings).  So, here are my questions:

1) Should I formally register my trademark?  Thus far, I have only used my domain name.  Do I have any rights by being first to market under this name on the web?

2) If I do register my trademark, do I then ask them to "cease & desist", or should I attempt to partner with them somehow?  Or, can I "license" my trademark to them for running this website?

Any thoughts?

Dear Powerone,

Great question , in regards to your first question I would recommend that you register your trademark.  I`m not a lawyer, however I believe you do not have any rights by being first to market under this name on the web.

One of our members is a patent and trademark specialist, his name is Chad Smith, you can contact him that 206-217-2200.  I find is billable hour very reasonable.

In regards to your second question I believe it would be hard to force them to cease and desist, and I`d normally recommend partnerships.  However the licensing idea is an out of the box concept which could have some potential.

Good luck, I wish you great success.

  I am trademarked Nationally, and I attempted in 2005 to setup a website using my trademark name, and contacted a similar online business in hopes that they would purchase for their customers my product........they began to use in their meta tag, the 1st three letters of my business trademark name to escalate them in search engines.......

I have had zero luck help or direction in how to have them cease and decisit in using my name, which my research over the years had shown me that the combination of how my business name is used and laid out had not been used.

I ended my online efforts until I can build a defense fund that is needed to enforce online trademark infringement which is growing rapidly........Reality.....I`m sorry to be the bearer of such news........Good Luck......

At the time of attending a seminar I had done a check on the availability of my business name directly and it was open. At this siminar we all gave personal info about the businesses that we were starting or had started. Stupid me, I let it out that I was getting ready to start my business online and someone asked me if I had gotten my domain name registared yet. Of course I said no. Well less than two days after this siminar, I went to registar the name only to find out that it was already registared and was not being used, but rather someone was squatting on it. I know that it had to have been someone that I was talking to at the siminar. In the domain search that I did there was a price tag on it. I would suggest before doing anything in the way of addressing this other company or saying anything else about your name, registar the name in as many of the other post tags that you can. .ORG is taken, but check on .CC, .biz, and so on. It may be a pricy thing at first, but it keeps someone else from using your name. You could always create a single page for each that has an automatic redirect that takes the viewer to your site. Having the same metatags in each will give you more search engine tags also.