I've been reading with interest as apparently AOL has filed suit claiming advertise.com is confusing similar to Advertising.com. It's of particular interest to me as I handled the negotiation and purchase of the Advertising.com domain name for them as an employee (we were called Teknosurf at the time and decided Advertising.com would be a good new name for the company. Having ".com" in your companies name, and picking highly descriptive names was still a popular tactic at the time). It was actually a fun, last-minute type negotiation where the seller needed to unload quickly, and my timing in contacting them worked out to be just about perfect.
Taking a look at some of the details, it seems like AOL will have an uphill battle for a few reasons:
- The trademark's AOL seems to hold include the design, not just the name in typed form (see here, here, and here). Trademark's including the design are particularly hard to enforce. If it was a "word mark" I think they might have a shot.
- AOL primarily markets the Platform-A brand, under which Advertising.com is a division.
I'm curious to see where this one goes, my knowledge of trademark and domain related legal topics is admittedly limited.
You can read some other opinions on the topic below:
http://domainnamewire.com/2009/08/18/aol-sues-advertise-com-for-trademark-infringement/
http://www.domainnamenews.com/up-to-the-minute/aol-wreaks-havoc-advertising-domains/5801
http://www.techwall.org/internet/aol-wants-owns-all-advertising-domains/
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