domain/biz name issue

Cianos

Hey,
A while back I bought the domain audiograff.com for my new website (after about a month and a half of trying to come up with a name!). A few days ago I noticed that someone else has audiograf.com.

I'm not sure whether I should continue with this domain or not. Would it cause me problems down the road, with intellectual property issues or something like that.

My site will be a music directory, and audiograf.com is a recording studio as far as I can tell.

I really want to use Audiograff.com because it's by far the best name I could come up with and I dont want to spend ages trying to think of another.

Any advice appreciated.

steve-hosting36

Unless you are passing off as the other company (which you are not) or are likely to be considered to be infringing on their trademark (if they have it trademarked) then you should be fine. There are many very similar names on the net, that happily co-exist without issue.

CoNfOuNd

Their site is in a completely different country and is in Spanish. I don't see it being a problem for your business.

You aren't copying them and you really like the name you've chosen. Besides, any name with 'audio' in it is highly likely to be related to the music industry so it's not really a coincidence.

jmcc

Check if Audiograf has a European Trademark (Community Trademark). Also ambiguous spellings are not good for a brand. You may lose traffic to the other site or even to a site with the domain audiograph.com. One of the most important points about chosing a domain for a project is that the domain is either unique (or as close to unique as possible) or generic. Unless you have a serious marketing budget, unique is best. The site seems to be based in Florida (USA) rather than Spain.

Regards...jmcc

Cianos

Thanks for replies. I was trying to email the manager of the business to see if they had an issue with us using the name. I haven't made contact yet or expressed the reason for my emailing so I haven't given away anything yet.

jmcc wrote:

Check if Audiograf has a European Trademark (Community Trademark).

How would I do this?

Also ambiguous spellings are not good for a brand. You may lose traffic to the other site or even to a site with the domain audiograph.com. One of the most important points about chosing a domain for a project is that the domain is either unique (or as close to unique as possible) or generic. Unless you have a serious marketing budget, unique is best.

This is the reason why I wanted to use audiograf with the one f. People would just have to get used to the fact that its spelt with an f...two f's is a bit more ambiguous.

Graff is from "graffiti".

I'm still unsure about what to go with...it's so hard to pick a good name though!

CoNfOuNd

I wouldn't worry so much about how the other business will view you using a similar domain name, but more about how it may be more difficult for your customers to remember your name or find you in search results. You don't want people mis-typing your name and ending up at another website.

I doubt you'll get the chance to use audiograf with the one f, so you may want to consider another name?

DJB

I recently got hit with a 'cease and desist' letter from a company in France that were trying to get me to hand over a .ie I had. They have the .com/.co.uk/etc. and claimed I had registered in bad faith. They also have European trademarks supporting their claim (but after the date I registered the domain). After a bit of research, I decided to fight it (on the reverse domain hijacking grounds). I would suggest you establish that you are entitled to this domain, e.g. have a trading as name registered with the CRO (around €30 or so). Also ensure you are not, as Steve suggests, trying to pass off as them. Keep your site looking different at least! A bit of documentation now may save you hassle down the line. It could help prove your case with WIPO (or whoever) should the situation arise.

Kudos to you for thinking ahead!

Rgds, Dave

Cianos

I want the site to be used globally, and I will be trying to market it on a global scale too (eventually). So in this sense, even if I had a trading as name with the CRO, would that count on a worldwide scale?

mneylon

Cianos wrote:

I want the site to be used globally, and I will be trying to market it on a global scale too (eventually). So in this sense, even if I had a trading as name with the CRO, would that count on a worldwide scale?

No
A registered business name does not confer any intellectual property rights.

Do a search on CRO for "mace" or "spar" and you'll see what I mean

AARRRGH

"Passing off" or proving unregistered trademark rights is very expensive and hard to prove. It's up to the prosecutor to prove he is right.

In general you have to be seen to be making money off their name, damaging their good will, and basically obviously be pretending to be them.

The fact that audiograf is in Spanish, in Honduras (?) and in a different field than yours, and will presumably have a very different website design, I think you have little to worry about.

PS I know quite a bit about this area as I went through the actual legalities of this once
PPS Personally I would try to think of another name, if just for peace of mind

Cianos

dublindude wrote:

"Passing off" or proving unregistered trademark rights is very expensive and hard to prove. It's up to the prosecutor to prove he is right.

In general you have to be seen to be making money off their name, damaging their good will, and basically obviously be pretending to be them.

The fact that audiograf is in Spanish, in Honduras (?) and in a different field than yours, and will presumably have a very different website design, I think you have little to worry about.

PS I know quite a bit about this area as I went through the actual legalities of this once
PPS Personally I would try to think of another name, if just for peace of mind

Thanks for this. Audiograf seems to be at least partially based in Florida...so I'm kinda worried that they would see it as an opportunity to sue if my site took off.

I would happily go with another name if I could come up with one. But it's so hard to think of a strong name and I was really happy with audiograff (up until now!). For the sake of peace of mind, I would happily settle for a 2nd best name though.

Cianos

I have just noticed on audiograf.com that they dont seem to have updated the website in a while. The two last notices posted on the site were from 1st Dec 06, and 3rd March 07. I sent them an email over a week ago and I only got an auto response. I might try ring their office to see what the story is. I hope the number is out of service;)

zokrez

Well if you google your domain name, you can see that there is threads posted elsewhere as well as here. The name is fine is in print but if you were relying on the name aurally, it could be audigraf, audigraff or audiograph with yours the least likest to be remembered. How about other names ?