Domain Name Laws

There is a lot of gray area when it comes to domain name trademark issues, and knowing what the law is can help save you some money.

What is the Law?

The Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, passed in November of 1999, made it easier for individuals and companies to take over domain names that are confusingly similar to their names or federal trademarks. But because trademark infringement cases were long, drawn out, and prohibitively expensive, few cases ever made it all the way to trial. As a result, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) decided to streamline the process by creating the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). In theory, the UDRP was a big improvement, since it made domain name disputes faster and cheaper, and also created a single three-prong rule for all domain name trademark disputes. In a UDRP case, the party seeking control of the domain need only prove three things:

  1. The trademark owner owns the federal trademark,
  2. The party that registered the domain name has no legitimate right or interest in the name, and
  3. The domain name was registered and used in bad faith.

While the three prong rule is succinct on paper, in practice, it is far from straightforward. In particular, there is no clear definition of “no legitimate interest” nor “bad faith.” Blatant cybersquatting or typosquatting is clearly illegal under the three part test; such as buying “www.Gooogle.com” and sending Google an email saying that you’re going to put up porn on the site if they don’t buy it from you for $10,000,000. But for less clear cases, such as whether holding “www.Googles.eu” is a violation of Google’s trademark, the UDRP three-prong test provides little guidance.

What are the approximate UDRP dispute resolution costs?

According to the WIPO, the costs vary based on the number of domains, and the number of arbitors (these costs do NOT include your attorney costs)

1-5 Domains

1 Panelist:    $1,500

3 Panelists:  $4,000

6-10 Domains

1 Panelist:    $2,000

3 Panelists:  $5,000


Our registration/sale policy:

How do we ensure that we won’t (and don’t) have any problems with the domains we sell?
EASY – we don’t list or sell a domain in the name of a known existing federal trademark…UNLESS (and this is the critical part) the domain was acquired BEFORE the trademark was granted (See the UDRP criteria!). The days when cybersquatting was a viable business plan are long gone, and attempting to do so now is just going to cost people time and money.

We make sure to check online for federal trademarks.

If you feel you have legitimate rights to a listed domain, please report a problem and our administrators will contact you.

For more information, check out the WIPO website or the ICANN website.