Any problem with registering personal names?

[slobizman]

Is there any problem with registering personal names in either the format FirstLast.com or Last.com, or heck, even just a first name?

I'm talking about regular old names. Some could be common, some uncommon, yet still might have hundreds or thousands of people with that name? Assume that there is no high-level famous person that has the name, but just regular people.

[aZooZa]

No problem at all based upon the question you posed. It becomes a grey area once you start on the celebs.

[slobizman]

What if I bought the name, let's make one up, like Bruester.com. Then, I get a call that there is a company in a state somewhere called Bruester, not a famous national company. But also assume Bruester is a last name which tens of thousands of people share.

I wonder about this because if any name has tens of thousands of people that it belongs to (the case with just about any last name), it would seem the odds are that some of them, somewhere would have a business of some type with that name.

[aZooZa]

www.uspto.gov is your friend.

[DNQuest.com]

Originally Posted by slobizman

What if I bought the name, let's make one up, like Bruester.com. Then, I get a call that there is a company in a state somewhere called Bruester, not a famous national company. But also assume Bruester is a last name which tens of thousands of people share.

I wonder about this because if any name has tens of thousands of people that it belongs to (the case with just about any last name), it would seem the odds are that some of them, somewhere would have a business of some type with that name.

If I owned ford.com, a very common last name, and decided to sell cars, I would lose it pretty fast. Usage Usage Usage. As far as your example, Bruester does have rights to the name since they are using it in commerce, just because YOU didn't hear of them does not mean it a free for all on the name.

[dotNetKing]

Originally Posted by DNQuest.com

.... Usage Usage Usage. As far as your example, Bruester does have rights to the name since they are using it in commerce, just because YOU didn't hear of them does not mean it a free for all on the name.

I think it is a free for all on the name, but the qualification is usage, as you say.

If there is no infringement of the scope of the trademark (registered or not) and if the domain wasn't registered with the specific purpose of selling to that particular company, then I don't think there should be any problems, although the company might want to make problems.

If the use of the domain inadvertantly infringes, then that could be different. But is inadvertant infringement bad faith, in the sense of the UDRP terms?

[jberryhill]

But is inadvertant infringement bad faith, in the sense of the UDRP terms?

It's not supposed to be. All of the examples of "bad faith" in the policy are directed to intentional behavior - what at law is called "specific intent".

However, infringement will often be taken as evidence of intent, so...

[slobizman]

Originally Posted by jberryhill

It's not supposed to be. All of the examples of "bad faith" in the policy are directed to intentional behavior - what at law is called "specific intent".

However, infringement will often be taken as evidence of intent, so...

So is it intentional behavior to register a name like Sally.com, if I don't park it and try to profit from it? It's generic, but I'd bet a million bucks that there is a business called Sally somewhere.

[DNQuest.com]

Then make sure none of the links or ads compete with Sally.

[slobizman]

Do you think that if you have a FirstLast.com name, not of a public person, it would be best to send the visitor to a sales page or a parked page. Since I doubt that the parked page would get much traffic, and especially get many clicks, it seems that making sure the individual checking to see what is under their name clearly understand that the name is for sale, would be valuable to do. Most non-domainers don't really understand a parked page means could still be for sale (even with the for sale notice on it). Seems like any FirstLast.com that comes up would be worth at least $500. Just about anyone would like to own their own names dot com. Or does this show too much "bad faith" that I am just trying to sell it, or does it even matter since it's not a trademark, business or popular name?