DomainTools Blog

We just got back from the International Trademark Association (INTA) conference in San Francisco! It ran May 14-18 and we had a great time meeting a good number of the 8,500 attendees from 140 countries. Each day, had engaging conversations about the industry, DomainTools, and it was awesome to see customers come up and introduce themselves with “We use you guys all the time”. For us, it was also enriching to hear about specific anecdotes about how specific tools like Reverse Whois, Trademark Alert, Whois, etc. are being leveraged. Be sure to read our press release about our INTA attendance if you haven’t seen it yet.

Here is a picture of our booth and staff before the exhibition hall flood gates opened the first day.

In just a few weeks, we will be showcasing DomainTools once again – this time at SMX Advanced in Seattle, June 7-8. If any of you SEO and Analytics gurus are in town, be sure to stop by booth #23 to say hello! By the way, DomainTools is looking to add an SEO and Analytics Manager to our incredible team! If you are interested or know of anyone with this expertise, feel free to read the full job description here.

Trademark holders are angry about people making money off their Brands and Marks. The Trademark Holders will combat Domain Tasters with their greatest weapon, hand-to-hand combat in a court of law. It would be nice if trademark holders could broadcast their Marks to a Trademark Tasting Blacklist ahead of time. I believe everyone is good at heart, even Domain Tasters, so DomainTools will start publishing a Trademark Blacklist for free starting next month.

Domain Tasters are free to download this list and we advise them to filter against it. Because Trademarks can be added to the list at anytime, it would be advisable to also scrub portfolios of domains that appear on the Blacklist. A Trademark Blacklist is a double-edged sword. The Blacklist will contain typos based on those marks and the actual marks themselves but the list could be used for evil purposes. Some wise guy could register all the names on the list. This goes back to the belief everyone is good at heart or perhaps that a lawyer will nail them for a $4,000,000.00 lawsuit. Either way, we hope the Trademark Blacklist is only used for good. Also, we will focus a big spotlight on the Blacklisted strings, focusing on the top abusers (AKA Lawsuit Targets) ranked by Registrars, Registrants, and possible Ad Networks.

We will make it a policy that Trademarks on the list must be at least 5 characters. So if “Ebay” was put on the list, it would be a reserved word and no typos would be generated for it and placed on the list. The drawback is that names like, “Chesapeake Bay” would be technically off limits because it contains the string “ebay” to a Taster who followed the voluntary “Trademark Blacklist”. That is a trade-off, but hopefully a trade-off that Tasters can live with. Four character words will be added to the Blacklist very carefully. We need to draw the line though, Three character strings would not be allowed at all. For example “AOL” would not be possible to be protected at all.

Simple Rules:

1. Marks must be at least 5 Characters long, sorry Nike.
2. Marks must be all three: 1) Famous, 2) Well Known, and 3) USPTO Registered.
3. There will be few reserved words on the list like “Bank” and “Ebay”
   Tasters should never register domains that contain these reserved words.
4. Marks can only be placed on the list by Registered Attorneys, DomainTools Staff, and Domain Tasters.
5. We will be generating Typos on all protected Marks and those will be on the Blacklist.
6. The “Trademark Blacklist” is completely voluntary for Domain Tasters.

We will be announcing more as development matures on the project, for announcements please subscribe to the DomainTools Blog.