Is a Domain Name an Automatic Trademark?

TheWorkingStiff writes "I registered a descriptive domain name (something like "thesimpledog.com") and started a blog on it. About a month later I get a threatening letter from a link farmer who owns "simpledog.com" The owner of simpledog.com is claiming that he owns the trademark to the words simpledog even though he has no real business or rights by that name other than a static page with some text and Adsense slapped on it. There is no product, service or brand whatsoever. Does simply registering a two or three word domain give you instant trademark rights to those words even though you've never done anything with them? Should I give up my domain to a link farmer who is trying to bully me, or does he have a valid right to any phrase he registers that isn't already trademarked?"

Comments

Well

[OverlordQ]

Question: Is a Domain Name an Automatic Trademark?

Answer: Ask a lawyer not Slashdot.

No, but...

[NMerriam]

Honestly, I'd just asking him for the USPTO serial/registration number for his trademark (and obviously search the uspto web site to verify it). If he has one, he's shown he actually cares about it, plus he's got all the paperwork he needs to dispute your domain with ICANN. Do you really want to spend time and money fighting at that point?

But of course he doesn't have one, so just asking will show him you're not just going to hand over a domain because you got a nasty email, which is what he's expecting. If he tries to quickly file the papers, he'll discover that just owning a domain name is not enough to even file for a trademark, much less get one. He'll have to find other uses of it (prior to yours) to complete the paperwork, and if his site is just a link farm it's questionable whether even his web site would qualify.