Cybersquatting the United States Postal Service: Return Domain to Sender.

When it comes to cybersquatting, the United States Postal Service appears to be the most aggressive government agency or department to protect its trademarks.  This UDRP search for “United Postal Service” as the complainant on domainfight.net reveals the following tidbits:

1. Post office has an unblemished record in protecting its online brands except for when it comes to www.postoffice.com and www.post-office.com; both claims have been denied upon findings by the panelist that registration was not in bad faith.
2. The United State Government, its agencies and departments can have common law and register trademark rights in their brands.
3. Don’t mess with the United States Post Office. 

Interestingly, a search of domainfight.net for the term “United States” as the complaint reveals that the only federal government agency, which appears to invoke its trademark rights in cyber space, is the United States Postal Service.  There was one case brought by the United States Office of Personal Management, another by the United States of America Department of the Navy, but that’s about it.  Like many companies, the United States Government does a poor job monitoring, identifying, and stamping out bad faith cybersquatting.  What many companies fail to realize is that if they don’t protect their trademarks, they potentially lose their trademark rights.  Intellectual property is becoming more valuable in our new “idea” economy.  If you do not protect your ideas – copyrights, trademarks, and patents – you will not be able to protect those ideas in commerce.