A.Thinking About the Law

You may have thought a lot about the marketing aspects of your domain name—how the name can attract visitors, communicate what you do, stick in customers' minds and inspire confidence in your business. All those factors definitely deserve attention, but there's another set of concerns that is at least as important: how trademark law affects your choice and use of a name.
If your domain name is the same as or similar to a trademark already being used by a competing or related business, that business might force you to stop using it somewhere down the road. And if you have built up considerable goodwill under the domain name when a trademark conflict flares up, this could amount to a business catastrophe. You can avoid this potential disaster by picking a domain name that is free and clear from legal conflicts.
If Someone Challenges Your Domain Name
This book is not designed to help you if your existing domain name comes under legal attack—for instance, if another business demands that you surrender your domain name. If that happens, we recommend Trademark: Legal Care for Your Product and Service Name, by Stephen Elias and Kate McGrath (Nolo), or to Nolo's downloadable eGuide, Trademark Disputes: Who Wins, Who Loses & Why. You may also need to consult a lawyer.
Some names are wonderful from a commercial perspective but close enough to existing names to cause a legal tiff, such as the dispute between etoys.com, a large toy dealer, and etoy.com, a small website of some English artists. Still other names may be unique as domain names but identical or confusingly similar to names used by brick-and-mortar-companies—a fact which easily can give rise to a trademark infringement lawsuit.
Fortunately, you can select a domain name that will be both commercially appropriate for your business and free from legal challenges by other businesses. Your best strategy may be to leverage an existing business name, with strong customer recognition, by using it (or part of it) as your domain name. But if you're just starting out, you may want to invent something catchy and different.