trademark primer

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Does Registering a Domain Name Protect It as a Trademark?

No. Registration of a domain name does not give any trademark rights. Trademark rights arise only from use of a mark as discussed above. Knowing that, it might be easy to conclude that registering a well-known trademark as a domain name does not infringe since it is agreed that some kind of trademark use is necessary to either establish trademark rights or form the basis of a suit for trademark infringement. Not so fast. In 1999, Congress addressed this by passing the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act which makes it an infringement to register and sit on someone's trademark "in bad faith," typically with the hope that the trademark owner will make a generous offer to buy it from the "cybersquatter." Nor is it lawful to register a misspelling of a well-known mark for the same purpose. "Typo-squatting" is also forbidden.

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