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Except that the way trademark law works in the US you have to "defend" your marks or they can be considered abandoned. This means as long as renewing your domai
by femto113 7y ago
Except that the way trademark law works in the US you have to "defend" your marks or they can be considered abandoned. This means as long as renewing your domain is cheaper than the cost of hiring an attorney to send a Cease and Desist letter to the squatter who grabs it after you're better off paying. I'm guessing that horizon is more like 30-40 years off.
- akiselev 7y agoIs there any precedent where the abandonment of a domain has been accepted by the courts as abandonment of a trademark?
- femto113 7y agoI do not know if anyone has lost a trademark over this, but in a practical sense you still need to be proactive--there is no trademark police force that will ensure nobody uses the domain inappropriately. Consider a donation-solicitation business that takes over abandoned .org domains to collect donations in your organization's name and then keep a percentage. You probably don't want that to happen, you certainly could make a reasonable trademark infringement case, but unless you take steps like sending them a C&D there's nothing stopping them. Even if all they did was put a CNAME for your old .org in that redirects to their own domain they could have a meaningful impact on your operations.