News / Resources

Cleveland partner Deborah Wilcox, Ohio coordinator for the firm's Intellectual Property, Technology and Media Practice, authored an article, "Is Your Business Domain at Risk?" which was published in the May/June 2009 issue of the Foodservice Equipment Distributors Association magazine, News & Views.

Wilcox's article focuses on three questions related to the obligations of trade owners:

• Does a trade owner have the obligation to purchase all relevant domain names and misspellings pertaining to its trademark?
• If the trademark owner does not register all the variations, are they free for the taking?
• Who has rights to domain names pertaining to defunct businesses?

Wilcox's article goes on to provide guidelines with respect to whether a domain name is at risk and could be attacked by a trademark owner, noting:

• The more famous the trademark, the wider the berth of protection
• Be vigilant on trademarks that are "words" in the dictionary
• When trademark owners fail to take reasonable action against cyber squatters, they jeopardize their rights
• Defunct businesses lose their domains

_{This article first appeared on the Wisconsin Technology Network website.}