The registrant of Cars.com, a 1998 domain, has applied for the registration of the mark CARS.COM at the USPTO.
The trademark application was filed for “Advertising Services.”
In 2015, domain sleuth George Kirikos identified the 2014 sales cost of the domain Cars.com at an astounding $872,320,000 dollars. The last recorded sale of Cars.com shows an $100k transaction in 2003 per NameBio.
Per George Kirikos’s expert analysis of the Cars.com financial statements, Cars.com is by far the biggest domain sale in history.
In the trademark application for CARS.COM, the applicant is claiming date of first use in commerce “at least as early” as on June 1, 1998 indicating that all IP rights were passed on with the company sale.
Why was CARS.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.
