Legal Question in Business Law in New York

Re: Strategic Alliances

It is conceivable to have a master strategic alliance/joint venture agreement to use in some circumstances and then have a rider to govern the specifics of each deal that contains differing terms. Another possibility is to develop a draft for such an agreement as a "starting point" and negotiate each deal separately. All depends on your bargaining power with the other parties to the agreements and how heavily each document will be "lawyered."

Company name, trademark and website domain name are three different things. If you happen to have federal trademark registration for a name you use for a company name and a website name, you are generally ahead of the game in the event there are conflicts with the names used by your competitors. However, the process of clearing, reserving and registering names is different for each of the three categories of names.

The above reply is in the nature of general information, is not legal advice and should not be relied upon as such.

Re: Strategic Alliances

Joint venture or alliance agreements can be setup in one one omnibus agreement. However, in my practice it is generally preferable to have separate agreements for all separate parties, with a general agreement that references these agreements. The logic behind this approach is to clarify and insulate the relationship between the parties. In other words, it's simply a cleaner process that way. This is is a matter of philopshy and as one of the attorneys who responded put it, these considerations are driven by how much or how little you want the agreements to be "lawyered."

Secondly, generally, one may trademark a website domain name (as opposed to the visual look and feel of the site itself). However, it is generally a chicken and egg game with smaller budgets and it's more economical to trademark the company's trade name and then register an identical domain name or a domain name that is very similar. Ideally, one will register both their trade name and the ".com/.biz/.net/etc." version of that name separately, for maximum protection.

The information provided herein is general in nature and is not legal advice and should not be relied upon as such.