Registering Somebody Else's Business Name As A Domain Name

**gsanc6127** · 09-13-2006, 06:55 PM

Hi,

My questions here is that I have a legal registed business name in Texas and I have been using since the begining of 2006. This is a small business that sells on an online marketplace. I have recently been looking at registering a my business name as a domain name, which up until a week ago was available. This leads me to the issue. I found out that someone else has registered a domain name that is exactly as my business name, which I was going to use. Do I have have any common intellectual rights?

**aaron** · 09-14-2006, 07:19 AM

Do you have any reason to suspect that the person who registered the domain name is aware of your business?

Your rights are a lot stronger if you register a federal trademark with the USPTO.

**gsanc6127** · 09-15-2006, 04:16 PM

I do not suspect the person was aware at the time. Although, they are aware of it now since I e-mailed them to inquire about that domain name.

I do realize that I have stronger rights if my trademark was registed. Unfortunately, I had not gotten around to that yet, as I was in the begining stages of developing my web site.