Expiring Names

NameJet

Items we are bidding on today at Namejet:

AdaptiveOptics.com - Great generic with about 5000 phrase searches per month and about 10 wordtracker.

I always question potential TM issues but as an observer I'm apt to say they are weak at best. Adaptive Optics Associates formed in 1995 and built their site at AOAINC.com and acquired adaptiveoptics.com some time after registering a trademark for the name of their company with an image mark. The corporation has since been acquired by Grumman. Prior to acquisition they renewed one trademark. After acquisition Grumman allowed a second similar the mark to expire.

While use of this term might have once been attributed to the company with the phrase "Associates" at the tail end of this mark, it seems unlikely that a generic such as this would be subject to TM dispute. Wikipedia is the top search result for this entry, has no links to any Grumman site, pdf or whitepaper, makes no mention of the former mark holder, and there is no record of anyone having pursued this mark as a matter of dispute. Moreover, I do not see any entries for Grumman, AdaptiveOptics.com, or AOAinc.com in any Google, Bing or Yahoo search results, so I am even more inclined to believe that not only is this mark unprotectable (much like try to protect ketchup if you are Heinz), but attached only to the old corporation as a means to protect itself as an entity, not as title-holder and rights-holder to the "Adaptive Optics" generic term.

Conclusion: Acquired successfully