Our original Name Advocacy practice continues to be of importance. In this work, which is part of many projects, we advocate for our client’s selected names, providing background information to client inside or outside counsel on our preliminary trademark searching, and any related follow up research. In doing so, we can often keep favorite candidate names “alive” through the Full Search process and to registration, which would might otherwise have been knocked out.
Domain name-related work including URL investigation and acquisition is also an important aspect of our Name Advocacy practice. This can be as straightforward as creating several variations of a recommended name, such as employing different add-on words or endings, to achieve an available URL, or as involved as investigating an already-registered URL’s masked owner in order to conduct an acquisition negotiation. In most cases, Master-McNeil’s representation of our clients in acquisition transactions succeeds in obscuring who our client is, resulting in a far lower price than if our client had conducted the negotiation on their own behalf or through counsel. We do not obscure our own identity, instead introducing ourselves as the creator of the name under consideration.
Occasionally we are engaged to provide Name Advocacy trademark services, investigations, or URL negotiations on behalf of names we have not created but are otherwise of interest to our client. Most often, however, this work occurs at the conclusion of a new name development process.