Main Subject - Internet and Businesses Online

Choosing an appropriate name for your website is one of the most important decisions you are going to make. In many respects, it is much like naming a child. There are several criteria to keep in mind when selecting a name:

The name has to "fit" the business, product, or entity that it is representing. For businesses, there are two types of domain names: a business domain, and a product domain.

According to USFDA, a combination product is one composed of any combination of a drug and device; biological product and device; drug and biological product

It is generally better to secure the business domain name first and establish a web presence, and then register domain names for your products.

For example, Proctor and Gamble secured their domain name (www.pg.com) before most companies were even thinking about the web. 15 years ago, it was easy to find a single word or short combination of letters that were not previously registered. In 1992, there were only 16,000 do

; or drug, device, and biological product and fixed dose combination would include two or more combinations of drug.

Examples of combination products may in

main names in use, today (as of December 2006) there are over 85,000,000 registered domain names, and that number increases by over 2 million EVERY MONTH.

Proctor and Game uses their main site as an index to all of their products and business information. Once a particular product had a strong brand name they also register a domain for that line, such as Charmin.

For smaller businesses, the question t

lude drug-coated devices, drugs packaged with delivery devices in medical kits, and drugs and devices packaged separately but intended to be used together.

o ask yourself is this: What do you want your potential clients to remember: your business name, or your product name?

It should be easy to remember and easy to say. My wife would like to open her own Cross Stitch store one day and we were talking about business names and trying to find something catchy and memorable, yet generic enough that it did not lock us into a particular kind of store.

here is enormous increase in the number of combination products entering the market in the recent years. Combination products have proven advantages but fixe

It would have been easy enough to register a name like SarasCrossStitchAndCrafts but we ended up registering TulipCrossings instead. It's short, simple, easy to remember, and will make for a great email address in the future.

Also, there is much more of a chance for error when someone has to type in a long domain name to get to your site.

Avoid dated clich‚s or names that

d dose combinations are still in the process of convincing regulatory authority on their advantages over the single ingredient formulations.

Combination pro

might have other (uncomplimentary) associations. Each decade seems to bring unique terminology when it comes to advertising. In the 70's it was "super, colossal", and the 80's gave us the age of adding the term "o-matic" to a product name. If I were selling office chairs and looking to compete seriously with other firms, I would not register Chair-o-matic or ColossalChairs.

ucts have become life saving products for the pharmaceutical companies who doesn’t have many innovative molecules in their product pipeline and have been inc

(These ~are~ great names if you are aiming at an offbeat, quirky market, however!)

"Pen Island" is a great name for a business selling custom logo pens. But after their site was up for a while they got the dubious reward of being listed in a humorous email last year listing the top 10 WORST website names. Their website penisland.net, looks like something completely different when the capitalization i

easingly used in the product life cycle management. Even the companies having product patents are trying to extend their product life cycle through the combi

s taken out of the name, and I wonder how much of their traffic since was people coming out of curiosity to see what PenisLand was all about.

The name should be short as possible. Your domain name will end up being part of your email address, and shorter is better. From a psychological standpoint, a short domain name is also typically thought of as being an older and more establ

nation products and maximize the revenues. But the companies involved in this practice are overlooking that they are burdening the patients both economically

ished site. This is mostly due to the fact that there are very few short names left to register today, and most modern registrations are either a combination of words

SomeName@SomebodysAutoGarageAndImportedMotorCars.com is a valid email address, but there is a HUGE possibility that someone will mistype a letter and you will never get the email.

DOT COM names are better for business There

and physically. They need to rightly judge the benefits of the combination products and they have to even look at the risks involved when combining the produ

are several different TLD's (Top Level Domains. These are the domain suffixes like .com and .net that you see at the end of a name) available aside from the ubiquitous ".com" TLD. The ".com" domain is the preferred TLD, and has the subconscious benefit of sounding more "established" than others.

Once you have come up with a likely candidate for your domain name, it is time to see if that name has already been register

ts. Some of the combination products were well accepted by physicians while others suffered. Companies involved in development of combination products are fi

d. This is probably the most frustrating part of the entire process because you will likely come up with several great names, only to find that they are already taken.

There are several sites that will allow you to check on the availability of a particular domain name, more than I could mention in the article. Just Google "check available domain name" and you will have a long list of places to try.

There are innumerab

ding difficulty in defining their combination products and facing various challenges from selecting a combination to marketing it.

Following aspects would a

le sites that will allow you to register a domain name, and the fees will range from $9.95 to $20 per year (depending on the site) to register a name. It is generally easier to register your domain with the company you choose to host your website, as most hosting companies will offer a FREE domain name registration as part of a hosting package. (I will cover the process of selecting a web hosting company in installment

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

Which markets to tap where the combination products can do fairly well?
Which combination prod

#2 of this series.)

Legal considerations when selecting a domain name There is ongoing discussion on how business names are trademarked and marketed today, due to how the internet name registrations are impacting how new business names are introduced and registered.

Traditionally, a company would register a Trademark, Servicemark, or Patent with the US Patent and Trademark Office (cts are meaningful and rational?
Which therapeutic categories to select?
Which Combinations can address unmet needs of the patients?
Do combin

://www.uspto.gov/" target="_blank">www.uspto.gov/) before going national with their company name. The act of registration effectively secured the name for the new business, and prevented lawsuits when the new national business began competing with local businesses using the same name.

However, the act of registering a domain name effectively introduces a new business name at a national (and worldwide) level without

tions increase the patient compliance?
What would be the developing cost?
How to tackle the risks encountered during combination product developmen

requiring that name to be trademarked with the USPTO. Although the legal precedent has already been set that a trademarked company can seize the rights to a domain name registered earlier by a "squatter" (someone who registers a domain name and holds on to it for sale at an exaggerated price), the following scenario is still unclear:

Company A registers a domain name, and has been conducting regular busine

t?

As combination products don't fit into the traditional categories of drugs, medical devices, or biological products, the USFDA is in the process of devel

ss under that name for over a year. Company B trademarks that same name later that same year, but is not doing business on the internet and therefore does not know that the domain name exists, or that Company A is doing business under that name. Company B discovers that Company A is doing business under their trademarked name. Who has rights to the name?

Traditionally, (assuming both companies are in the s

ping new procedures for reviewing their safety, efficacy and quality.

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

ame type of business) Company A would have to surrender rights to the name to Company B. However, these laws were written at a time before the internet existed. National use of a business name at that time was limited to television, radio, and magazine advertisements. Companies used the USPTO trademark system to ensure that they had the rights to proceed with national advertising without having small businesses operatin

y and representatives from various regulatory agencies are working out to design the regulatory requirements for manufacture and sale of combination products

g under the same name bringing lawsuits against them. In this example, it can be argued that the Trademark for Company B should never have been granted. Part of the process of applying for a trademark is researching the name to discover if it is already in use.

The end result is a paradox: For less than $20, anyone can find an unused name and register it worldwide. Once registered, it is literally IMPOSSIBLE for anyone

.

As there is an increasing trend of the combination products companies manufacturing such products should be able to tackle the problems involved in the de

else to use that domain name. As soon as that name is used, that business can be considered as doing business nationally and other businesses wishing to trademark the same name via the USPTO would fail their application as the name is already in use.

This clearly overlaps the trademark laws in the United States, and one might argue that the existing trademark system would need to be modernized to include domain name r

elopment. They need to be wiser in analyzing the market trends and the regulatory requirements.

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

egistration as part of the process to grant a trademarked name.

The moral here is to use due diligence when selecting a domain name and to remember that under current law you may have rights to the domain name, but it does not replace the need for a federally trademarked name.

The next installation in this series will cover the process of finding a web hosting company that fits your budget and technical needs.

tion in industry events and feedback to regulatory authorities would be able to face the challenges and will be successful in developing combination products

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Main Subject - Create Your Own Website And Domain Name - Installation #1: Choosing A Name That Will Grow With You

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