A review of websites related to trademark law.
By Erik J. Heels
First published 2/15/1999; LegalResearcher.com; publisher: New York Law Publishing Company
If you are looking for a general introduction to the law of trademarks, the US Patent and Trademark Office has an excellent brochure on the topic entitled “Basic Facts About Registering A Trademark” (http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/tac/doc/basic/).
A limited form of the USPTO’s trademark database is also available online (http://www.uspto.gov/tmdb/), but read the disclaimers carefully, because not all pending applications are included in this database. But compared to what was available a few years ago (nothing), this is a huge step forward for the USPTO.
If you want to find everything IP-related on the Internet, check out the “Intellectual Property Mall” from Franklin Pierce Law Center (http://www.ipmall.fplc.edu/pointbox/pb_8.htm), which contains the most comprehensive listing of trademark law links I’ve ever seen. But for some highlights, check out the following sites.
Several firms offer fee-based trademark searching, including MicroPatent (http://www.micropat.com/), NameProtect (http://www.nameprotect.com/), and Corporate Intelligence (http://www.trademarks.com/).
A chronological history of domain name disputes (through mid-1997) appears at the site of the American Association of Domain Names (http://www.domains.org/disputes_chronology.html).
To keep up with the latest official developments regarding domain names and related issues, visit the Web site of the newly formed The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (http://www.icann.org/), a nonprofit corporation formed in November 1998 to take over responsibility for the IP address space allocation, protocol parameter assignment, domain name system management, and root server system management functions now performed under U.S. Government contract by IANA and other entities.
Perkins Coie publishes the “Internet Case Digest,” an excellent up-to-date digest of cases that touch and concern the Internet space. The law firm’s trademark summary appears at http://www.perkinscoie.com/resource/ecomm/netcase/Cases-26.htm, and the domain name summary appears at http://www.perkinscoie.com/resource/ecomm/netcase/Cases-08.htm. Other NLJ 250 firms publish newsletters online, but Perkins Coie’s site is in a class by itself.
