- Joined
- Apr 15, 2002
- Messages
- 5,755
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It's time to change my usrname to 'trader.' After using realnames at the forums for a number of yrs (the late 1990's) I need to change it.
Three reasons, one is a similar reason companies may change their name, namely a new identity and new outlook, and to avoid the old name getting shall we say 'stale' or 'antiquated.' This reason is related to reason #3 below.
The 2nd reason is actually quite interesting. I have been a member of another forum board (not a domain forum but website developer board) for a while and doing a little posting (not a lot) under 'RealNames' when all of a sudden out of the blue a PM comes from a forum Admin saying my membership was frozen because they received a trademark infringement complaint from the owner of the registered TM 'realnames.' He told the forum that the members may confuse me with his trademark name. Isn't that amazing? I even told that forum owner my use of the word PRE-DATED the TM owners TM date but he did not care about that, though it would seem very relevant and valid.
Thirdly, I started using the name when virtually no one knew the value of real-names which were also type-in names. In the late 1990's most everyone except domainking and a few others had little idea about the value of real names and by far the most popular names for sale at the old forums like Afternic and Great Domains were so called made-up names. At that time members sometimes flamed me for pushing real names and not liking their made-up ones. Now of course most everyone knows about real name values vs made up names, so the name is not too modern shall we say.
Here is the link to his US Trademarks, the ones marked Live are the important ones: http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfiel...LL=AND&a_default=search&a_search=Submit+Query - The name is/was used by a firm trying to sell internet-key-words using a browser plug-in where typing in a keyword ends-up going to the clients website rather than some other site, or to MSN Search.
P.S. The above link has timed-out. Just do a new search, use 'search trademarks' located at top-middle then go to 'new user form search basic,' and enter the word realnames (1 word, no space).
Three reasons, one is a similar reason companies may change their name, namely a new identity and new outlook, and to avoid the old name getting shall we say 'stale' or 'antiquated.' This reason is related to reason #3 below.
The 2nd reason is actually quite interesting. I have been a member of another forum board (not a domain forum but website developer board) for a while and doing a little posting (not a lot) under 'RealNames' when all of a sudden out of the blue a PM comes from a forum Admin saying my membership was frozen because they received a trademark infringement complaint from the owner of the registered TM 'realnames.' He told the forum that the members may confuse me with his trademark name. Isn't that amazing? I even told that forum owner my use of the word PRE-DATED the TM owners TM date but he did not care about that, though it would seem very relevant and valid.
Thirdly, I started using the name when virtually no one knew the value of real-names which were also type-in names. In the late 1990's most everyone except domainking and a few others had little idea about the value of real names and by far the most popular names for sale at the old forums like Afternic and Great Domains were so called made-up names. At that time members sometimes flamed me for pushing real names and not liking their made-up ones. Now of course most everyone knows about real name values vs made up names, so the name is not too modern shall we say.
Here is the link to his US Trademarks, the ones marked Live are the important ones: http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfiel...LL=AND&a_default=search&a_search=Submit+Query - The name is/was used by a firm trying to sell internet-key-words using a browser plug-in where typing in a keyword ends-up going to the clients website rather than some other site, or to MSN Search.
P.S. The above link has timed-out. Just do a new search, use 'search trademarks' located at top-middle then go to 'new user form search basic,' and enter the word realnames (1 word, no space).