UK based EasyGroup has won a trade mark for easy.com, despite objections raised by Easynet (an ISP) on the grounds that the proposed mark consisted entirely of the elements easy and .com, neither of which are distinctive and both of which are in common use, i.e. the term was devoid of any distinctive character and therefore ineligible for registration.

In response, easyGroup argued - "it had been the owner of and had traded from the domain name easy.com since November 2000 and no other trader would legitimately want to trade as easy.com and there was a clear difference between the trade mark and the elements that made it up."

The Hearing Officer David Landau, in determining the said trade mark application, analyzed it is often necessary to analyse the individual elements of a trade mark, but once that analysis is made then the overall impression must be taken into account. In this case the whole mark was found to be distinctive.

While granting of Trade-Mark... it was clarified that - "The granting of rights in easy.com is not the granting of rights in easy".