Brands and Blockchain Domain Names

With the emergence and growth of the blockchain domain name market, there has been quite a bit of discussion about domain names with trademarks and famous brand names. There is well-established intellectual property law related to traditional (Web2) domain names, but there are plenty of questions related to decentralized blockchain domain names with famous trademarks in them.

The EnCirca Twitter account posted a link to a comprehensive article about blockchain domain names and trademarks. The article was written by Andrea L. Calvaruso, Matthew Luzadder, Constantine (“Dino”) Koutsoubas, and Kerianne Losier of the law firm Kelley Drye & Warren LLP:

I think the article has some good information for brands who are looking to protect their marks. Importantly, it also has good information for people buying blockchain domain names to understand the risk and enforcement options for brands.

I am not super familiar with blockchain domain names or the market, but it seems like some people may have a bit more of a cavalier attitude towards trademark purchases than in the Web2 .com space. Because blockchain domain names are much newer, there hasn’t been a whole lot of case law established involving extensions like .Eth. I think the Kelley Drye article gives a good overview of the current legal landscape for brand owners and the risks for domain investors.

When it comes to buying domain names, I have done my best to steer clear of well-known brand names. Many brands would prefer to spend money on legal avenues than to reward people they believe are infringing on their brand. The market to sell these domain names may also be more limited. Put another way, there is much more risk with a more limited opportunity for reward when it comes to trademark domain names.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

Leave a Reply

Recent Posts

Chat.com Acquired for More than $10 Million

5
Last week, Hilco Digital's Andrew Miller shared that he and Larry Fischer brokered the sale of the Chat.com domain name. Andrew mentioned that it...

Hilco Digital Assets Announces $10m Investment in Squadhelp

1
Squadhelp has become a leading brand naming marketplace, connecting business owners and entrepreneurs with domain names listed for sales on its platform. Led by...

Questions Related to Uni —> Afternic Parking Migration

5
If you are a Uniregistry customer, you most likely received an email explaining the upcoming migration of the Uniregistry Market and parking platform to...

Some Uni-Registered New gTLDs Will be Transferred to 1API

2
I received an email from Uni (formerly Uniregistry) that I initially thought was a Whois verification email and almost ignored. It was, in fact,...

Advice and Resources for a Newbie Domain Investor

2
Someone reached out to me on Twitter seeking advice for selling domain names. In a short tweet thread, I shared a few thoughts and...