Question about a trademark

Hi guys,

I have recently bought an expired domain because I liked the name for my niche (for example: smartbubbles.uk) but then checked the companies register (UK - Companies House) and it appears that there is a company with that name as my domain (example: Smart Bubbles Limited) and also there is another company who has the name of my domain in their registered trademark logo (example: smart bubbles in a circle).

My questions are:
- can I use the newly bought domain without any problems?
- can I register my domain name (example: smartbubbles.uk) as a trademark?

Thanks for any suggestions.

You can try with the second option you mentored.
If there is no sucess - better not to use such domain name at all.

I don´t know how UK handles trademarks, but I have some trademarked wordmarks here in Sweden like "myword.se" and there was no problem to register it here, but as I said, UK might be different. If you really want it, try to trademark a wordmark of your whole domain, worth a shot maybe.

If you're not in the same niche, it shouldn't be a problem as it's a generic name. But, if the company wants to secure the name, they could pull a few strings to get it back.

Recently I had a little ahm discussion with a big US hotel group. Ok, the discussion was with their lawyers.
I used the name - trademark for a 301 redirect (expired, good metrics, similar niche). At the end it costed me 500 Euro (+ my lawyer) instead of 3.000 Euro, what was the first amount they wanted.
Be careful with that. You may consult a lawyer working with ipr before.

Hi guys,

Thank you all for your replies. They are very helpful.

I am going to try to register the domain as a trademark and if it doesn't work I will offer it for sale to these two companies that have the same wording in their names.

Just now I put the domain in Sedo for sale for a price I would be interested to get if I couldn't register the domain.
One good thing is that the domain is old and both companies have been set up last year, so there is little chance my domain was once their domain and they would want to take it back from me.

Thanks