Everyone knows that a catchy domain name can be critical to the success of many businesses. Likewise, a poor domain can cause confusion, and even result in lost business.

Additionally, a great domain name can be worth a lot of money. Just consider the patent law firm that owns Patents dot com and dot net. The firm has split up and they were accepting bids for the domain name. The last time I checked on the status of the bidding it was up to almost $500k! A press release dated May 3rd (http://www.patents.com/forsale/) indicates that they have accepted one of the bids. I can only hope that some day I can get a fraction of that for www.Invention-Protection.com or www.Golf-Patents.com!

I recently found several funny articles about domain names and the potential of unintended meanings. As you may know, an anagram is a word or phrase made by rearranging the letters in another word or phrase. A particular class of anagrams doesn’t involve the rearranging of any letters but rather the rearranging of spaces. One classic example of this is the transformation of the "Psychotherapist" into "Psycho the Rapist." Another such example is the transformation of "the IRS" into "Theirs."

The lack of spaces in domain names leads to all sorts of interesting interpretations. Check out the following entertaining examples. 

1. The Speed of Art URL is www.speedofart.com

2. Concerned about static IP addresses? Perhaps the software found at www.ipanywhere.com can help.

3. Need a therapist? Try Therapist Finder at www.therapistfinder.com

4. Pen Island’s website is found at www.penisland.net

5. “Who Represents” is where you can find the name of the agent that represents any celebrity. Check out the site at www.whorepresents.com

These issues could have been easily avoided by using hyphens, or dashes “-“, to separate distinct words. So, choose your domain name with care.

David Dawsey – The Golf Intellectual Property Attorney