What Are the Similarities?
Both trademarks and domain names help people find you and your business. Both trademarks and domain names operate on a first-come, first-served basis, meaning that you can easily check if a certain name is available. But just because it's available today doesn't mean that it won't be taken by someone else tomorrow.
At which point, you're out of luck. Just because you are the first who thought it might be a good idea to own a name means nothing unless you actually act on it. Also, you can build value around both trademarks and domain names and you can license or even sell them.
What Are the Differences?
There are also a few differences. The trademarking process is much longer and much more complex compared to getting a domain name. It takes a few minutes to register a new domain name. It takes more than a year to register a trademark. Anyone can register a domain name.
You need experience and specialized knowledge to successfully register a trademark. You need to renew domain names every year. You need to renew a trademark every 10 years in most countries and every 15 years in Canada.
With domain names, if the exact domain name is available, you can have it. With trademarks, even if the exact name is not trademarked, you won't be able to get it if there is another previously applied for or registered confusingly similar trademark. Of course, trademarks are significantly more expensive to get than domain names.
The Takeaway
There you have it. There are a lot of similarities and a lot of differences. What's important is that most businesses need to have both. They need to have their brand reflected in domain names and they need to have their brands protected as trademarks.
This is just one of many short videos where I provide specific, no BS answers to your questions about trademarks. If you have a brand that you want to protect, go to www.trademarkfactory.com, fill out the form, tell us what the brand is and we'll help you protect it with a free comprehensive trademark search for an all-inclusive flat fee with a 100% money-back guarantee.