With thanks to my colleague Cassandra Robertson for bring this article in yesterday’s NY Times to my attention. The article describes ongoing battles between the FTC and Experian to have Experian stop using the “freecreditreport.com” domain name for credit monitoring services that are not, in fact, free. What interested me in particular about the article was the point that Experian makes that it should not have to give up the name because the name effectively functions as its TM. I don’t know the law on misleading/deceptive TMs in the United States – or if indeed there is specific law on this. This TM may not be misleading in the traditional TM sense ie confusing consumers about the source of services (unless one accepts that the government has a TM in freecreditreport.gov which is uses for its free credit report services and confusion arises when people seek the “.gov” services but mistakenly assume they’ll find that under the “.com” name). It seems more likely that the mark is potentially misleading/deceptive in the more general unfair competition sense. I know I’m only displaying my own ignorance here, but what are the salient TM precedents, if any, in these kinds of situations?