Domain companies form the domain industry where domain name investors, also known as “domainers” operate.
There are hundreds of domain companies worldwide, and many are registrars, registries, brokerage companies, and domain selling or domain auctioning platforms.
The secondary domain market part is worthy roughly $2 billion dollars per year, according to this research.
But should domain companies worry about this matching trademark, DOMAIN COMPANIES?
The Domain Companies LLC has applied for this mark which has been published for opposition, with a pending registration date of May 21, 2021. The trademark was approved for the following products and services, per the USPTO:
Real estate services, namely, leasing, financing, management and rental of apartments, condominiums, residential housing, and facilities and amenities relating thereto; real estate services, namely, rental, leasing and management of commercial retail and office space
Real estate development and construction of commercial and residential properties
The mark’s registration was initially refused “as is” due to similar uses of it by related industries. Eventually, the applicant had to disclaim the “companies” part of the mark for the application to proceed.
It’s interesting that The Domain Companies LLC does not operate from the domain DomainCompanies.com, which is part of the NameFind portfolio of domain names under the GoDaddy umbrella. Instead, they operate from TheDomainCos.com, as seen in the capture below:
According to their web site, the Domain Companies is “one of the nation’s leading real estate development and investment companies specializing in sustainable, mixed-use development. Since our founding in 2004, Domain has been involved in over $1 billion of impactful, mixed-use real estate across a diverse range of product types and markets.”
Should other domain companies be worried, therefore, by the generic use of the term “domain companies?”
We seriously doubt that. GoDaddy might hold a nice gem in its possession, however, so perhaps The Domain Companies LLC might acquire it from them. 😀
