Pirate Studios, registrant of Pirate.com, a 1997 domain, has applied for the registration of the mark PIRATE.COM at the USPTO. The application includes a graphical “P” in a circle before the domain as part of the claimed mark.
The trademark application was filed in several product and service classes, one of which is:
Providing access to digital music, sound recordings and video websites on the Internet; providing access to digital music websites on the Internet; Streaming of audio and visual material via a global computer network; electronic transmission of messages and data, namely, music and video media; telecommunications services, including telecommunication services provided via the internet and/or computer networks; broadcasting services; forums for social networking; chat room services for social networking; Provision of telecommunications access for the distribution of music and media; advisory and consultancy services relating to the aforesaid.
There is no recorded sale of Pirate.com at NameBio. Pirate.com has an active web site about its services; the music services company secured $20 million dollars as an investment in 2018. At the time, they operated from PirateStudios.co.uk.
The trademark application for PIRATE.COM was filed with an “intent to use” clause. However, the domain Pirate.com appears to have been acquired from Afternic around July 7, 2019.
That’s the date that the sale appeared to have finalized, as NameFind was listed as the previous registrant. Pirate.com remained in escrow from October 22, 2018 until July of the following year so it just might have been a case of WHOIS not updating.
Pirate.com is a former asset of Marchex, a manager of premium domains acquired by GoDaddy in 2015.
Why was PIRATE.COM applied for as a trademark at the USPTO?
It’s an ongoing trend among owners of generic domain names, following the decision by SCOTUS on the Booking.com trademark application.
Since then, dozens of generic domain names have been applied to be registered as trademarks, inclusive of the TLD. We keep track of these applications, and so far none has been decided upon.
Will these applications become the new norm? Watch this video from NamesCon Online 2020.
