Company names in domains

[techtimmy]

Hi

Just a quick one.

Is it illegal to have a well known company name in your domain.

eg. samsung mobile phones.

Is that an infringement of trademark

 

[grantw]

In theory yes.

Grant

 

[unusualdomain]

There are two issues. One of them is the issue of a trademarked company(say samsung)

It is not illegal to have a company name in your domain but it might be considered 'passing off' so if you had samsungmobilephones.com and were promoting any of the classes that samsung either sells or has their trademark in then you would be 'passing off' which means that they could threaten you with legal action and if they win perhaps get their costs back from you.

The other issue is a company who although not trademarked has got substantial brand loyalty/been trading for a long time ie a name that people would know in your target market.
If they have not trademarked their name, they will have to work harder to prove their brand values and that they are known throughout the UK but it could still be considered passing off if you were selling the same products as them.

If the name is more generic then it's more of a grey area. So if for example you had the name mcdonaldsbeer.co.uk and were a family called Mcdonalds who brew Beer you would probably be ok as Mcdonalds fast food does not sell beer.

 

[techtimmy]

ok thank guys

 

[RampageJackson]

There are circumstances where you are allowed to do it, for example Paypalsucks.com has a site on it and that is fine. If you are going to build a site like samsungphones.biz and push affiliate offers on it, the short answer is that Samsung could easily take that domain from you at any time they chose.