Legal Question in Technology Law in New Jersey

Re: Potenial conflict of interest with internet companies sharing the same name

The question relates to infringement and similar issues. There is no absolute answer under the law as it is today. Cases tend to turn on their individual facts. It is fairly well-established that www.xyz.net does not automatically unacceptably overlap www.xyz.com. Consider the fact that whitehouse.gov is the official site of the U.S. White House and whitehouse.com is now an unsponsored blog but used to be a porn site. Suffice it to say that the owner of a domain name does not automatically acquire the right to prevent similar names.

However, that can change if the names are used in commerce so as to identify a product. There are also many situations in which domain name mimic existing tradenames. For example, www.cocacola.com is the site for the Coca Cola companies. You will not find a www.cocacola.net because the Coke would treat this as trademark infringement and the courts agree.

So, for your situation, the important part is to get online as soon as you can. As a practical matter, a trademark or tradename only really becomes definsible when it is used in commerce. You need to be concerned about whether the other domain owner will consider your site to be an infringement.