Trademark .com?

Question

I own an internet business (we're incorporated) and am about to trademark our name....

let's say my website is http://www.eggzample.com...

Should I trademark "eggzample" or "eggzample.com"???

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Well no one can take ur name.com until it expires.

You would need someone to be reminded to renew the name.com when it expires.

There are services however that attempt to sell  "reserve any dot com"  and they will give you notice when to steal someone's name.com.

This is a pathetic new business.  So you should trademark both in my opinion.

Answer 2

The process for filing for a trademark for a domain name is similar to any other name in terms of comprehensive research and analysis being a necessity.

Comprehensive research consists of looking at marks that are similar in Sound, Appearance or Meaning in the pending & registered Federal AND State trademark files as well as the US National Common-Law files.

There is one big caveat when it comes to trademarking domain names and it has to do with usage of the domain name.

"A mark composed of a domain name is registrable as a trademark or service mark only if it functions as a source identifier," so says the USPTO. Okay, but what does that mean?

Basically, as long as your domain name is the name of your product and/or service, it's likely registrable. Let's look at an example to illustrate this:

Example: The online seller, Amazon.com, has a Federal trademark registration for Amazon.com because it's the name under which they conduct business.

Were they conducting business using just Amazon, that is the name they'd file for a Federal trademark.

Hope that helps! I wish you much success & happiness in all your ventures!