Legal Question in Technology Law in California

Re: Rights in a domain name itself?

I'm going to suggest that you run this by an Australian colleague, Steve White. His e-mail address is [email protected]

My sense is that, under US law, your use of the DNS constitutes use in commerce in the class of goods or services that your business sells. If the Australian company is selling goods in the US that bear trademarks confusingly similar to the DNS, then there would be infringement of your common-law trademark rights.

Re: Rights in a domain name itself?

On second thought, I like the other replies better than my original reply.

Re: Rights in a domain name itself?

That's wierd!

In my opinion, sorry, no. Not with respect to their marketing efforts

in these United States, UNLESS they named their product

after your well-known website in an effort to associate it / them

with you or your site and are thus misleading the public.

I don't really know Australian law and it's possible (though

doubtful to me) that they could be prevented under their law from doing that.

There. I answered your question (even if it's not what you wanted to hear!).

Please tell me the name of their product / your website! My e-mail address is [email protected]

here.

Re: Rights in a domain name itself?

You have the right to market your product in California using the name of your TLD to market it. If the Australian company were to compete with you *in your market* within California, then you could file suit to stop them from confusing the public about your mark.

You probably cannot stop them from using their name in Australia, however, because they got to that market first.

Unless you are a true competitor. You should contact an attorney with expertise in trademarks and conflict of laws. If you can't find one here, then try http://www.computercounsel.com, http://www.attorneyfind.com and/or http://www.lawoffices.net