The Lanham Act
Even before enactment of the ACPA, the Lanham Act provided some of the most powerful remedies for what we call “anti-competitive conduct” of the sort that unfairly appropriates the value of another's trade name, trademark, or “designation of origin.” In addition to direct trademark infringement of either registered or unregistered trademarks, the Lanham Act also provides remedies for “trademark dilution,” and other acts that fall short of the complete theft of someone's mark.
Lanham Act remedies include the right to conduct “ex parte seizures” of infringing merchandise, allowing registered trademark owners to sweep into a competitor's place of business without warning, accompanied by federal marshals bearing seizure orders and injunction notices, to cart away all of the goods that are found to be infringing. In terms of lawyer power, such seizures are costly to mount, but they have such a devastating effect on a competitor that they are launched with relative frequency. Avoiding such litigation is reason enough to give a wide berth to any acts that smack of trademark infringement. On the other hand, if you are the victim of trademark infringement, the law provides you with a powerful weapon to obtain redress, and should be pursued as aggressively as resources will allow.
In the event you have a trademark that is being infringed, or you are the target of a trademark action, you need to obtain competent counsel immediately. Strategizing the manner of dealing with trademark litigation is essential to avoiding excessive expense both because of business interruption and liability exposure. Online Media Law PLLC provides skilled consultation in this field of law, and is available to consult on such actions pending anywhere in the United States.
If you have understood the import of the section on domain names and the ACPA we went through previously, you will be clear that trademarking your domain names is your best insurance against domain name hijacking. You have also understood that being on the wrong side of a meritorious ACPA action is a situation in which you are likely to lose, and face serious procedural disadvantages. The merits of an ACPA claim, whether you see yourself in the role of plaintiff or defendant, need to be assessed by a skilled attorney with insight into the law of cybersquatting.
A few simple rules should help a lot in avoiding having to defend ACPA claims: (1) avoid registering or purchasing domain names that are confusingly similar to popular trademarks, (2) if you purchase a domain name, be sure the seller warrants that the domain name does not infringe any known trademarks, (3) beware of domain names in arcane top-level domains, such as country codes, i.e. “.TV, .CC, .DE, etc.” The reason is because the .Com, .Net and .Org variants having already been bought up, it is much more likely that someone is already staking a claim to this piece of cyberterritory. Getting in on the country-code end of the deal is like being at the backend of a pyramid scheme. There is little to be gained there except, if you are successful in building up traffic, a cybersquatting lawsuit.