Domain Name

[DanC999]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Tennessee

Hello - I was researching how to buy a domain name to protect intellectual property - my intent is to buy it now, and as soon as possible, patent the design (a game in this case), and then populate the website. I have done (just a little) research so far, and found that it is as simple as paying a registrar a maximum of $35 a year to register the domain name. Is it really that simple? Thanks......DWhat is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?

[Some Random Guy]

Yes, you can buy any available domain you want and you can pay less than $35 per year for it. But that domain name can be list if it contains a trademarked name/phrase owned by another company. for example, I could buy SRGsEBayStore.com. But Ebay, if they found out my site existed, could send me threatening letters and then initiate legal proceedings to wrest control of the domain name.

Your best bet would be to register a trademark for your game name, after researching whether there were similarly trademarked games or entertainment.

Your eventual game would be protected by copyright, trademark, your end user licensing agreement, and whatever DRM is attached ot the game. Patents for games are highly unlikely.

The cost of this really depends on how professionally you want to run your software business and how widely you plan on selling the game.

[DanC999]

Thank you, randomguy! This will help. What I did not mention first is, this will be a board game; with a companion website......again, I am still beginning to research it all. Thanks, D.

[EliteProgrammer]

Yep getting a domain name is extremely easy. $35 bucks per year or less. I have 21 names registered. I would start by searching your desired name at...

uspto.gov

United States Patent and Trademark Office Home Page

...especially since it is free to search. Just because you get a domain name registered does not mean it is yours. Some of the remaining laim conservative business folks who believed the internet would never amount to anything can have rights over that domain name if they have a registered trade name before you get the domain name. If you got the domain name before they got the registered trade name then that is one hurdle you are over.

I have also read that if could you get a name such as...

micrpsoft.com and used it as a redirect URL to another site of yours they could fight to take it from you because the o and p are common keyboard typos. Many others exist.

My domain names are a combination of two words in the english dictionary and individually they are NOT registered trademarks and probably could not be registered seperately at all. Combined they are very unique and can be registered as trade names. This makes it near impossible for anybody to take my domain names away from me. While mine are no where simular to the giant MS you do not see microsoft attempting to take away any domain that uses micro or soft in the name.

Create a unique name and domain.

BTW, I am also creating a 3D game totally around my domain name. Good luck to you and yours.