Domain name advice

[Hammertime]

Looking for a bit of advice. Not sure if this is the right place to post or not but feel free to move it somewhere else if necessary.

So I have this domain name i'm hoping to use as a sports betting portal. The domain is ****365 dot com. Obviously, this is very similar to the bet365 brand and in the same industry, albeit a completely different service.

Do you invisage any issues in this case? There are a lot of xxxx365 websites out there so they obviously couldn't claim any trademark right over that, but with us both being in the same industry they may feel that we could be mistaken as being part of the same group or something?? What do you think?

Any advice appreciated.

[ClaytonL]

I'm not a lawyer, but I wouldn't suspect any problems as long as you don't become a betting website. Like you said, there's already a ton of *365 domains, it would be impossible for someone to claim copyright.

[DomainMagnate]

365 is just the number of days in a year, not much to trademark there

[Clinton]

Call me cynical but the chances of them suing you seem connected to how successful you make the site. Start earning millions and people will take a chance and sue you on the oddest pretexts.

If it were me, and bearing in mind I don't have a history of taking new domains and making them into million dollars properties, I'd be tempted to use this domain and develop it. Given the word "punt" it would be difficult to find many non-gambling subjects you could use it for.

[ClaytonL]

I wasn't aware that the word "punt" was related to gambling. I guess that's my vocabulary lesson for the day.

[tke71709]

British thing...

[Michelle]

Punt would be considered betting/gambling in Australia too, it's used regularly in that context.

[Hammertime]

Thanks for the input folks.

365 is just the number of days in a year, not much to trademark there

Yeah this is my thinking too.

[Hammertime]

Well Google have taken it upon themselves to disapprove my Adwords ad for "Copyright" but have failed to provide any explanation thus far. I can only assume that it's due to this similarity.

[Clinton]

Ouch! Sorry to hear that. If they've disapproved it is that the end of the road for Adwords PPC then?