Let’s review some basic domain dispute legal advice*.

Big brands spend big bucks on cybersquatting and typosquatting prevention — so says a whitepaper commissioned by NetNames. The study asserts that 1 in 28 webpages infringes in some way and that criminals and adult content providers file 5% of domain disputes.

These stats raise two questions:

1. How can small business owners protect their online intellectual property?
2. What legal avenues are available to deal with domain disputes?

Domain Dispute Legal Advice: Try These Steps Before Filing A Lawsuit

If someone is cybersquatting on your rightful domain, try these steps.

1. Politely ask the owner to give up the domain. Many people solve their cybersquatting challenges with a single KIND email.
2. Aggressively ask the owner to give up the domain. If the infringing party is nasty, he or she may ignore your initial request. A strongly worded letter from an intellectual property lawyer may do the trick.
3. File a complaint using the Uniform Domain Dispute Resolution Policy. The UDRP is a domain dispute resolution process developed by ICANN. You can read more about another UDRP case here.
4. File a copyright infringement lawsuit. People who’ve exhausted other options or don’t want to go the UDRP route can always file a domain dispute claim.

Domain Dispute Legal Advice: Defensive URL Buying

To protect against cybersquatting and typosquatting legal issues, do some “defensive registration buying” when launching a business. You don’t have to do anything with the “defensive” urls, but the two hundred dollars a year they cost could save a lot of legal headaches down the road.

Contact A Domain Dispute Lawyer

“With consumers often willing to sacrifice quality in order to get certain products at reduced prices, the growth of counterfeiting, cybersquatting and digital piracy is growing at an astounding rate,”

explained a NetNames spokesman, and continued:

“We now live in a world where the average consumer owns more than one internet-enabled device. This has led to the creation of a constantly-connected environment in which we rely more and more on online products and services. The inevitable consequence of this evolution is that the number and sophistication of cyber-attacks that consumers and brands are exposed to has also dramatically increased.”

Our Internet law attorneys regularly deal with domain disputes and other online intellectual property issues. If you have a nagging domain issue, give us a call.

Click to read more domain dispute legal advice*.

*Disclaimer: This post does not constitute actual legal advice and does not establish an attorney-client relationship.