Cybersquatting the United States Postal Service: Return Domain to Sender.

When it comes to cybersquatting, the United States Postal Service appears to be the most aggressive government agency or department to protect its trademarks.  This UDRP search for “United Postal Service” as the complainant on domainfight.net reveals the following tidbits:

1. Post office has an unblemished record in protecting its online brands except for when it comes to www.postoffice.com and www.post-office.com; both claims have been denied upon findings by the panelist that registration was not in bad faith.
2. The United State Government, its agencies and departments can have common law and register trademark rights in their brands.
3. Don’t mess with the United States Post Office. 

Interestingly, a search of domainfight.net for the term “United States” as the complaint reveals that the only federal government agency, which appears to invoke its trademark rights in cyber space, is the United States Postal Service.  There was one case brought by the United States Office of Personal Management, another by the United States of America Department of the Navy, but that’s about it.  Like many companies, the United States Government does a poor job monitoring, identifying, and stamping out bad faith cybersquatting.  What many companies fail to realize is that if they don’t protect their trademarks, they potentially lose their trademark rights.  Intellectual property is becoming more valuable in our new “idea” economy.  If you do not protect your ideas – copyrights, trademarks, and patents – you will not be able to protect those ideas in commerce. 

Comments

[Stewart Engelman Domain Sales]

Hello,

Some comments on your thread.

It is always best to trademark any phrase you wish to protect. US government agencies certainly have no right to complain if someone registers a domain with their name in it and they never bothered to get a trademark.

That being said, a trademark can never be viewed as an absolute guarantee. If you register a domain in such a manner that does not interfere with the trademark owner's operations, or falsely imply their endorsement of whatever you are doing with the domain, then it's possible you may be able to keep the domain in spite of the trademark.

Trademark law is a very gray area, and one that relies more on the spirit of the law rather than the letter.

Also, potential or actual trademark owners need to make certain their trademark is not deemed invalid on "public domain" grounds, such as when a single dictionary word or common phrase is trademarked. The USPTO is supposed to deny such applications, but errors do slip through, and they are generally unenforcable in court.