Quote:
Originally Posted by zabijaq
Check for live TM's before saying something.
Dow is too common to be able to have TM.
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Many common words are TMed, and are often quite enforceable.
With that said, a TM owner does NOT have automatic rights to acquire the related domain names, BUT has a lot of leverage (ie. UDRP strongly favors TM owners) in acquiring / restricting how others use them.
The US PTO Trademark database is NOT a glorified whois.
An unregistered (common law) TM (ie. not registered here and/or is in another country(s); TM owner does business in the same place where the registrant and/or registrar is located) can be problematic too ... or more often, a TM variant that one has ignored / overlooked.
And in regards to database status ... one should check all statuses, because a "dead" TM refers to the *registration* NOT the actual TM, which may still be in use / enforceable; can be revived in some instances. Furthermore, some "dead" TMs are referenced in other TM "live" registrations.
Ron