Disclaimer
One Stop Web Presence.com, also referred to as "1 Stop Web Presence.com" at its sole discretion, may choose to change the terms, conditions and operation of this Web site at anytime. By using this service the user waives any rights or claims it may have against One Stop Web Presence.com. The content available through the Site is the sole property of One Stop Web Presence.com or its licensors and is protected by copyright, trademark and other intellectual property laws. Except as otherwise explicitly agreed in writing, One Stop Web Presence.com-owned content received through the Site may be downloaded, displayed, reformatted and printed for your personal, non-commercial use only. Content owned by One Stop Web Presence.com licensors may be subject to additional restrictions. You agree not to reproduce, retransmit, distribute, disseminate, sell, publish, broadcast or circulate the content received through the Site to anyone, including but not limited to others in the same company or organization without One Stop Web Presence.com´s express prior written consent. WITHOUT LIMITING THE FOREGOING, One Stop Web Presence.com SHALL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU OR YOUR BUSINESS FOR ANY INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, SPECIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES OR LOST OR IMPUTED PROFITS OR ROYALTIES ARISING OUT OF THIS AGREEMENT OR ANY GOODS OR SERVICES PROVIDED, WHETHER FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR ANY OBLIGATION ARISING THEREFROM OR OTHERWISE, WHETHER LIABILITY IS ASSERTED IN CONTRACT OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE AND STRICT PRODUCT LIABILITY) AND IRRESPECTIVE OF WHETHER YOU HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF ANY SUCH LOSS OR DAMAGE. EACH PARTY HEREBY WAIVES ANY CLAIMS THAT THESE EXCLUSIONS DEPRIVE SUCH PARTY OF AN ADEQUATE REMEDY. YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THIRD PARTY PRODUCT AND SERVICE PROVIDERS ADVERTISE THEIR PRODUCTS AND SERVICES ON THE One Stop Web Presence.com WEB SITE. One Stop Web Presence.com FORMS PARTNERSHIPS OR ALLIANCES WITH SOME OF THESE VENDORS FROM TIME TO TIME IN ORDER TO FACILITATE THE PROVISION OF THESE PRODUCTS AND SERVICES TO YOU. HOWEVER, YOU ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT AT NO TIME IS One Stop Web Presence.com MAKING ANY REPRESENTATION OR WARRANTY REGARDING ANY THIRD PARTY'S PRODUCTS OR SERVICES, NOR WILL One Stop Web Presence.com BE LIABLE TO YOU OR ANY THIRD PARTY FOR ANY CLAIMS ARISING FROM OR IN CONNECTION WITH SUCH THIRD PARTY PRODUCTS AND SERVICES. YOU HEREBY DISCLAIM AND WAIVE ANY RIGHTS AND CLAIMS YOU MAY HAVE AGAINST One Stop Web Presence.com WITH RESPECT TO THIRD PARTY PRODUCTS AND SERVICES, TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW.
How do "Intellectual Property" issues affect me?
This Web page, and the other pages of One Stop Web Presence.com, are provided by the company as a service to the public. It is hoped that the information provided here will be helpful to readers in familiarizing themselves with the concepts of Web site construction, the aquisition of domain names, the establishment of a Web presence and the relation these topics have to intellectual property issues and how these issues may affect them. As legal advice must be tailored to the specific circumstances of each case, none of the information provided here should be used as a substitute for the advice of competent counsel. In addition, be aware that intellectual property law varies considerably from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Therefore, some information provided here may not be correct as it pertains to your jurisdiction. Finally, you should keep in mind that as a service to you, we provide numerous links to other web sites that we feel have relevant content; however, we have no control over such web sites and cannot be responsible for their content.
Definition of a Trademark
This is NOT Legal Advice. Please read our disclaimer above. There is a common misconception that trademark law is in effect solely to protect the trademark holder. This is a fallacy. Trademarks, unlike patents and copyrights (which serve to protect the holder), are in place largely to protect the public. They serve to prevent confusion among the public over the origination of a particular good or service. They also serve to protect the goodwill and name recognition of businesses that have invested in improving and distinguishing their products. Trademark rights generally exist (depending on your jurisdiction) as common law, though most countries also recognize them federally. The ability to protect a trademark is largely a function of the strength of that trademark. Some marks are highly distinctive (strong marks), others are less distinctive (weak marks). Trademark strength is usually assessed as being in one of five categories, from strongest to weakest: arbitrary, fanciful, suggestive, descriptive, and generic. Arbitrary marks are well-known words that are used to identify goods or services to which they have no relation (e.g.: Apple Computers). Fanciful marks are invented words, such as "Pentium," that are applied to goods or services. Each of these types of marks is considered inherently distinctive because their association with the marked goods or services is only the association that they have gained in the marketplace. Suggestive marks are also inherently distinctive, but are weaker than an arbitrary or fanciful mark because a consumer with some thought or imagination could discern the nature of the goods from the suggestive mark. Descriptive marks require little imagination to discern the nature of their associated goods, and are not considered inherently distinctive. As such, descriptive marks are not protectable unless the holder can show "secondary meaning," that is, an association in the minds of consumers between the mark and that particular source of the product or service. Generic terms are terms commonly descriptive of a class of goods or services, and are unprotectable. You may remember Xerox's huge ad campaigns at the dawn of the age of photocopying, proclaiming that you photocopy stuff, you don’t Xerox it. This was so that the name Xerox could remain fanciful instead of becoming generic.
Protection of Trademarks
This is NOT Legal Advice. Please read our disclaimer above. If the plaintiff in a trademark suit can show that she/he has a protectable mark, he/she must then demonstrate that the use of an infringing mark: is likely to result in consumer confusion as to the source of the marked goods or will "dilute" the strength of the mark. Courts take a variety of factors into account when looking at whether consumer confusion is likely to be caused. Factors that may be reviewed include: the similarity between the marks, the strength of the plaintiff's mark, the defendant's intent or bad faith in adopting a similar mark, the "proximity" of the goods in advertisement, marketing and distribution, instances of actual confusion, and the sophistication of consumers of the goods. In the case of domain names, dilution of a trademark is a hot topic. Generally, a trademark holder is able to argue that dilution will occur as a result of two means. Firstly, that a tarnishing effect will occur; that is, the third party's poor quality goods or services may become associated with the trademark holder. Secondly, a trademark holder can argue that blurring has occurred. That is, the mark has become common place and doesn’t remind consumers of the trademark holder's quality goods or services.
Famous Domain Disputes
This is NOT Legal Advice. Please read our disclaimer above.
1. Princeton Review vs. Kaplan College In 1994, Princeton Review, a provider of courses and materials to prepare students for standardized aptitude tests such as the SAT and LSAT, determined that launching an Internet site could expand its business. Princeton registered a number of domain names, such as princeton.com and review.com. However, Princeton also registered the domain name "kaplan.com" and established an Internet site under that name which contained materials disparaging the quality of Kaplan's courses. Understandably, when Kaplan, Princeton’s chief competitor in the standardized test preparatory market got wind of this, they were not amused. Princeton Review then offered to surrender the domain name kaplan.com for a case of beer, either domestic or imported. Kaplan Review declined, and instead took Princeton to court. The dispute was subsequently sent to binding arbitration, and Princeton Review was ordered to surrender the domain name.
2. Roadrunner vs. NSI Warner Brothers has a trademark named Roadrunner, named after the cartoon character of the same name. Roadrunner is also the name of an Internet Service Provider in the State of New Mexico. They have been operating with the domain name 'roadrunner.com' since 1984. The roadrunner is also the state bird of New Mexico, and hundreds of businesses in New Mexico are named after it. In late 1995, Warner Brothers submitted to NSI that it had control of the trademark "Roadrunner" and requested its domain name back. NSI then sent out a letter warning the Roadrunner ISP that its domain name would be cut off in 30 days. The Roadrunner ISP was understandably very upset. In order to keep hold of their domain name, Roadrunner carried out a number of actions. They began negotiations with Warner Brothers to keep the domain name roadrunner.com. They registered the name Roadrunner as a trademark in Tunsia, Africa. (This practice was very common for a span of time.) They took NSI to court. In the end, Warner Brothers withdrew its claim for the domain name roadrunner.com, and the case was dismissed as being moot.
3. McDonalds vs. Quittner A writer for Wired Magazine, Joshua Quittner, discovered in the fall of 1994 that McDonalds had not registered its famous name. He called up McDonalds headquarters and inquired as to why they had not done this, McDonalds being a company that is extremely protective of its trademarks. He found the workers at McDonald’s corporate headquarters amazingly ignorant of the Internet. He then generated his own story by registering mcdonalds.com and changing his email address to ronald@mcdonalds.com. Understandably, McDonalds was less than amused. In a happy twist, though, Quittner gave the domain name back to McDonalds on the condition that they gave $3,500 to an inner city school in Brooklyn's Bedford Stuyvesant area for a high speed Internet connection.
4. Intermatic vs Toeppen / Panavision vs Toeppen In one of the first cases where a domain-name hijacker was brought to court, Mr. Toeppen had registered numerous companies' names, including intermatic.com, panavision.com, deltaairlines.com, britishairways.com, crateandbarrell.com, ramadainn.com, eddiebauer.com, greatamerica.com, neiman-marcus.com, northwestairlines.com, ussteel.com, and unionpacific.com. Mr. Toeppen's lawyer freely admitted that Mr. Toeppen intended to sell these domain names back to the respective companies for a profit. When an Internet user viewed one of these sites, they were greeted with an innocuous street map of the greater Champaign-Urbana area. This was a dilemma for the court, as Mr. Toeppen had obviously not tried to either dilute or tarnish the image of any of the trademarks of these corporations. It was also fairly obvious that any user expecting to find information on Delta Airlines at deltaairlines.com, for example, would quickly realize that they were in the wrong place. By performing some legal acrobatics, the courts came to the conclusion (in both cases) that the domain names should be handed over to the respective companies.
Start
page
Virtual Stores
Web
design
Domain
name
Web
hosting
Search
engines
About
Us
Contact
