In the news today a U.S. federal appeals court unanimously ruled against AOL Advertising.com TM lawsuit. Lifting a portion of a preliminary injunction placed back in January by AOL against Advertise.com. The three judge panel agreed with Advertise.com that AOL did not have the exclusive right to use the mark, but upheld the portion of where similar logos were used by Advertise.com.
Jonathan Stempel of Reuters / Yahoo : reported “The U.S. Ninth Circuit of Court in Appeals reversed a lower court ruling in AOL’s favor, accepting Advertise.com’s argument that the “Advertising.com” mark is generic enough not to warrant protection.”
The judge stated: “A mark is not descriptive merely because it conveys some minimal information about a product or service,” Judge Betty Fletcher wrote. “If all it describes is the common name of the product or service, it is not protectable as a trademark.”
This is good news for the domaining industry as it sets some standards on how generic terms can be used in domain names. This ruling makes it very clear that domains with TM generic terms used as it’s described and adding “.com” are too generic and have a slim chance of winning in a court of law.
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I’ve read a lot of online articles on this topic lately. Yours is the only one that really made sense to me. Thanks a bunch.