[steve19]

Correct me if I am wrong, but you cannot trademark the name of an everyday object, such as a pitchfork, and then have rights to any use of the word in a domain.

So do they have the rights to pitchfork.wordpress.com, pitchfork.heroku.com and pitchfork.github.com ? Of course not.

This is not about IP, this is about a company doing their friends a favor. I will now stay away from tumblr. If I cease posting for a few months they could take my domain away.

[pyre]

> Correct me if I am wrong, but you cannot trademark the name of an everyday object, such as a pitchfork, and then have rights to any use of the word in a domain.

You can trademark the name of an everyday object. See 'Apple' computers vs 'Apple' the music label. Now they only have a trademark dispute is someone in their industry has the apple.com or apple.github.com or whatever (e.g. if Microsoft or Dell registered apple.wordpress.com, Apple might have a case to take it away from them do to brand confusion -- which was the original reason for trademarks).

[steve19]

I did not say you cannot trademark an everyday object, I said trademark it for all uses.

Microsoft could register apple.wordpress.com and use it to blog about apples (the fruit).

Edit: Spelling