Domain Names and Registered Trademarks

I have been using the BANS (Build a Niche Store) system for about three months now and, as I’ve said before, it’s an exciting affiliate marketing tool.

One of my BANS sites is a niche that involves Lego sets and has the word ‘’LEGO” in the domain name.  I have been purchasing domain names for two years now and own a few that include registered trademarks in the name.  An example would be NFLAnalyst.com.  Obviously, NFL is a trademark of the National Football League and, if the NFL cared to, they could take it from me.  I have to admit that I have known for quite awhile now that the owner of a registered trademark can claim trademark infringement.  There are tons of webmasters that use trademarked names as a part of a domain name.  But I honestly never thought companies cared that much.  I feel pretty dumb now.

This morning I received an email from a representative of “The LEGO Group” advising me that I have to release one of my domain names to them or face legal action.  This representative tells me the following:

The effect of your use of the LEGO mark as part of your domain name, create the false and misleading impression that you are authorized, licensed or approved to provide information about, or goods or services with respect to, the LEGO Group’s products or the LEGO Group itself.

At first when I read the email i was pretty pissed.  The domain name mentioned in the email is one of the first I used to setup a BANS system.  I have put in a lot of effort with it as it involves a niche that I am pretty interested in.  In the last month or so i have been reading a blog about the Build a Niche Store system by a guy named Dave.  Dave has a lot of good advice for new BANS users and posts daily tips for his readers.  Using his advice, I have included lots of pages of unique content, incorporated a WordPress blog into the site and did what I could to get backlinks for my site.  Since I set the site up in November as a freshly registered domain name it has received a PageRank 3!  This is an accomplishment for me as it is not easy to be ranked that quickly for me normally.

So naturally for LEGO to just send me a letter telling me it will no longer be mine, I was mad.  Unlike a few other sites I have had to transfer, I will not be able to use 301 redirects and enjoy the PageRank juice from the old domain.  LEGO will take the domain name and let it resolve to nothing probably.  But I understand right now that this is my fault.  I should not have registered a domain name with a registered trademark.  Developing the domain into a website was an even bigger mistake as that makes the domain more valuable.  I will certainly not do this again.

I’m trying to look on the bright side of things with this.  For one, I incorporated a blog in a sub domain for this BANS install.  I always wanted to make the domain name resolve to a WordPress blog and use the BANS system in a sub directory, as Dave recommends.  I’ve been meaning to do that but I hate changing URL’s and setting up redirects.  Also I have decided to make the site even better with more unique content and landing pages.  So now I can do all these things with a brand new domain name that does not include any registered trademarks.

Moral of the story would be to avoid developing a website that includes a registered trademark, unless you own that trademark of course.