Several years ago there was an attempt to sue the registrar of a TM name for allowing the domainer to register it. Yet the court found no fault on the part of the registrar.

How can that possibly be the case? If you look at nearly every TOS it clearly states that there should not be any infringement of copyrighted or TM names.

Yet, not only do the registrars permit the registration, but they also permit the transfer of and the selling of these names. Look at Pool, TDNAM, Afternic, or Sedo. These may not be registrars per se (TDNAM is GoDaddy, 1and1 is Sedo) but these sellers/drop catchers/auction sites facilitate the sale of these blatant TM names.

In the past, a registrar my claim that they simply can not check each name registered. Yes, they can! Inexpensive software and even fee for service sites will alert any institution of possible copyright or TM registered domains.

The pressure has been on the shoulders of the domainers to do the right thing. All the while, the registars have these long worded TOS and look the other way.

But in time, and that time may be now, it is going to put mounting pressure on the registrars and those that permit the registration, sale and transfer of such domains.

The more interesting part of this new corporate strategy that should concern all of us is the illegal use of registrar records once they have been seized and locked by law firms. If a Law firm is in the business of protecting trademarks, they can scan the data base, find TM infridgements, notify the companies, then pursue legal actions. In the end keeping the registrar locked for an undetermined amount of time effecting thousands of domain owners. Reverse Domain Tasting for the legal guys to find business. As this new strategy goes mainstream, registrars will be locked for undetermined amount of time. Watch and see.

Registrars should have implaced a tool to prevent registering trademarked names, that is how the big guys look at it. Now they are being held liable because they made a profit off a trademarked name(Dilution). Also they have deep pockets, which law firms love. After they are done with the registrar, they will go after the registrant and milk even more money.

Very scary when you really read into it for a domainer who is doing the right thing. How would it affect domainers to have all their entire portfolio locked for possibly a year or more? Quite a bit I would imagine.

Steve Morales