If you’re like me, your house and office are strewn with boxes from Amazon.com. Love them or hate them, they’ve been successful, owning about a quarter of all U.S. online retail sales. But who should own the new domain “.amazon?” Our friends at ICANN (say it with me: “The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers”) are currently weighing that question.
Throwback Time
Way back in 2011, I published my very first blog post. That post, Budweiser’s New 619 Beer?, gave the world a few clues about where this blog would go: it referenced craft beer (check) and contained a Simpsons joke (check.) More to the point, it was about the issues around Geographically Descriptive Trademarks. As I wrote in that post,
Consumers need to know where their products come from. The USPTO’s guidelines reflect this policy. This question rests initially on whether the primary significance of the mark is a generally known geographic location.
Generally speaking, geographic terms are to be avoided when choosing a trademark or brand name. Geographic trademarks are difficult to protect and full of complications. Sadly, Jeff Bezos didn’t consult me about this issue when he founded Amazon.com back in July 1994. Although why would he have – I’d just graduated high school and had never heard of e-mail.
Anyway, Amazon.com is stuck with their brand name and they seem to have overcome this burden and grown into a thriving enterprise. They own a bunch of trademark registrations, the details of which are beyond the scope of this post.
The .amazon Domain Question
However, they don’t (yet) own the rights to the domain “.amazon.” Conceivably, they might want to own the domains books.amazon or store.amazon – or, more likely, prevent others from owning those domains.
For the last few years, ICANN has been debating the case of “.amazon.” The process of assigning the domain to Amazon.com was held up on the objections of countries including Brazil and Peru.
Congress Steps In
Recently, two members of the U.S. congress, J. Randy Forbes (R-Va.) and Suzan DelBene (D-Wash) wrote ICANN to urge them to rule in favor of Amazon.com. They stated:
Neither Brazil nor Peru has any legally recognized rights — let alone intellectual property rights — in the term “Amazon” and there is no basis in international law for either country to assert rights in the term…
Geographic Trademark Tip
ICANN may very well decide in Amazon.com’s favor, but not after a lot of time and money was spent, both on legal funds and lobbying. And that’s the point, for businesses of all sizes. If you’re Amazon.com, one of the world’s biggest retailers, you can afford the cost. But a company that’s creating a new brand name should be aware of these types of trademark-related issues and consider steering clear of geographic terms.
