Just a reminder that the ability to use something on the Internet doesn’t give you the legal right to do so. A newspaper publisher is suing two women for using the term “Leelanau pages” on websites because of alleged trademark infringement.

No matter how this particular case turns out, there’s a key legal issue you remember. If someone owns the trademark, service mark, or registered trademark, you may infringe upon that mark by using a similar word or phrase as your site’s domain name. Simply because a domain name can be registered doesn’t mean it is legally available for use.

About the Author

With an advanced international law degree from Georgetown University and more than 14 years of real world legal experience, Attorney Mike Young shows entrepreneurs how to protect and grow their businesses online. He's the author of Internet Marketing Legal Secrets Revealed. Not just a lawyer who focuses exclusively on Internet and marketing law, Mike’s been working with computers for more than 27 years (his first computer was an Atari 400 with 8 KiB RAM) and started representing Internet businesses back in 1996.