When a Business Relationship Goes Sour, Make Sure You Own the Domain Name

Another lawsuit shows that domain names are important intellectual property.

I’ve written numerous times about web design companies holding a client’s domain name hostage. Here’s another cautionary tale about domain name ownership.

A Florida company called StableTracker.com, Inc says that its former outsourced tech team has stolen its intellectual property and its domain name (pdf).

StableTracker.com, Inc. says it contracted with the (now) defendants to perform a number of technical tasks including registering its domain name. But the defendant in charge of registering the domain name registered it in his personal name.

After the business relationship went sour, the company claims the defendants stole the intellectual property including software code and domain name. To make matters worse, it alleges that one of the defendants sent an email to an important business partner from StableTracker.com’s email account — using the email alias of the company founder and plaintiff.

Remember, if you control the domain name you control the email.

I think many people overlook how your domain name is an important piece of intellectual property. Make sure you own it.

© DomainNameWire.com 2011.

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Related posts:

1. Woman Says She Threw Away Business Over $483 Domain Name

Cost-Per-Action Search Engine Patent Headed to Auction Block

Patent could potentially target Google and Microsoft.

A U.S. patent directed at cost-per-action advertising on search engines as well as cash-back search is headed to the auction block.

Sunnyvale, California based AnchorFree Inc. has enlisted ICAP Ocean Tomo to auction off U.S. patent number 7,647,305 (pdf) at its November 11 intellectual property auction in Napa, California.

The patent covers two main things. First, it covers charging search ad customers based on a CPA model rather than cost-per-click. Google has already toyed around with this sort of idea, charging customers based on an action (such as a sale or lead) rather than per click.

Second, the patent covers giving a portion of advertising fees back to the searcher. This is similar to Microsoft’s CashBack search, which rewarded searchers with a percentage of Microsoft’s affiliate fees when customers made a purchase. Microsoft has shut down the service, but many similar services exist.

Can’t wait for the auction? The patent has a buy-it-now price of $2 million.

© DomainNameWire.com 2010.

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Related posts:

1. Will Cost Per Action Replace Cost Per Click?
2. Yahoo Awarded Patent for Human-Enhanced Search Engine
3. Google Awarded Patent for Local Search Integrated with Whois