Registering your company’s trademarks with the United States Patent and Trademark Office provides considerable protection. However, there are other, often equally as important, steps that you should consider taking to more fully protect your company’s valuable brand names. Two such steps are domain name registration and international trademark registration.
1. Domain Name Registration. Most company’s will seek to register their brand names as a domain name when the brand name is the same as the name of the company. However, many companies do not think to register domain names for the brand name of a new product they are launching, or common variations of their domain names. Registering such Internet domain names is far less expensive than trying to obtain them from a “cybersquatter”. Before you announce the launching of a new product line, be sure to register the domain name for it. If you don’t, a cybersquatter may beat you to the punch in the hopes that you will pay them to transfer the domain name to you. You may also want to consider registering variations on your particularly popular domain names. Cybersquatters also seek to profit off of popular domains by registering domain names that are similar to popular domain names as a way of generating traffic to their sites. Common cybersquatting tactics include “typosquatting”, which involves registering a domain name similar to a popular domain name but with two of the letters swapped in a way that people would commonly mistype. Although the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy, know as the UDRP, offers a relatively cost-effective means to resolve domain name disputes (as compared to a full-blown lawsuit for trademark violation under the Lanham Act), it is often far cheaper to pay the annual fees for a few additional domain names. You will have to start paying for those domain names anyway if you successfully obtain them from a cybersquatter.
2. International Trademark Registration. Another step to consider is applying for registration of your trademark in foreign countries, especially if your business is international. Under the Madrid System for the International Registration of Marks, a single application can cover all of the 84 member jurisdictions, which includes all of the member countries of the European Union. However, a separate trademark application must be filed in any country that is not party to the Madrid System. If your company only does business in one or two foreign countries, it may be more cost-effective to only file trademark applications in those one or two jurisdictions. Additionally, a single application can be filed to cover all of the member countries of the European Union through the Community Trade Mark system. Accordingly, if your US company only does business in the US and the EU, registering your trademark with the USPTO and the Community Trade Mark system will offer you adequate protection.
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