You’re ready to launch a new business, product, service, or project. You have a name. The domain name for the name you chose is available. So you register it. But you haven’t lunched a website at the domain name you registered. Nor have you done anything more, other than prepare internally to launch. Have you established trademark rights in the name? Probably not.
In the case of Brookfield Communs., Inc. v. West Coast Entm’t Corp. 174 F.3d 1036, 1052 (9th Cir. 1999), Brookfeild sued West Coast alleging that West Coast’s planned use of Moviebuff.com infringed Brookfield’s trademark rights in MovieBuff.
West Coast argued that it had trademark priority (first use) by registering the domain name MovieBuff.com in February 1996 before Brookfield’s first use of MovieBuff in August 1997 in connection with its online database. However, West Coast had not yet launched a website at Moviebuff.com .
The court noted that the mere registration of a domain name with an intent to use the domain name as a trademark commercially does not establish trademark rights. Therefore, Brookfield’s first use of MovieBuff in August 1997 predated any valid trademark use of MovieBuff by West Coast in connection with its website. Therefore Brookfield had priority in the MOVIEBUFF mark. And West Coast’s “I was first” defense failed.
The court ordered that West Coast be enjoined (prohibited) from using MOVIEBUFF as a trademark and from using MOVIEBUFF.com.
The registration of a domain name is an important step in launching a project. If you can’t get the domain name, you might have to go with a different name for the project. However, registration of the domain name alone is not sufficient to establish trademark rights. To establish trademark rights, you’ll need something more, such as filing a federal trademark application (often preferred), or launching a website at the domain name providing goods and/or services under the trademark so that the name is in actual use as a trademark.
P.S. Also, forming a corporation or LLC with the name alone does not create federal trademark rights.