Is there any way to protect your Domain name?

I have heard of people losing there domain names over trademark issues (wheather you owned the domain years in advance or not). How do you protect against this? Is it always necessary to trademark the domain? That could become quite expensive. All in all if you have an unrealted item on the web site could you still receive a cease and desist and lose your domain?

thank you in advance

RS:

I have heard of people losing there domain names over trademark issues (wheather you owned the domain years in advance or not).

True.

RS:

How do you protect against this?

For one thing you can check your domain name on the USPTO website to see if somebody else is using it as a trademark.

RS:

Is it always necessary to trademark the domain? That could become quite expensive.

Well, if your domain name is making you money, then that's a business expense that you should be prepared to incur.

If it's just a personal domain name, it's not likely to get any attention.

RS:

All in all if you have an unrealted item on the web site could you still receive a cease and desist and lose your domain?

Sure.

There's always that possibility.

While responding to a similar question today I came across the following articles that will be of interest to you:

http://www.genomicslaw...

http://www.icann.org/e...

http://www.igoldrush.c...