For a business, a domain name can become a valuable piece of intellectual property, for example e-bay or amazon. But before using a domain name, you should do research to make sure no-one else is using a similar domain name for similar services. This could lead to problems. One way to do this is by doing it yourself through domain name searches using search engines, such as google, yahoo, etc. You should do the advanced searches, and use wild cards, etc. to cover as many likely variants as possible. Similarly, be sure all the top-level and country domains you are interested in are covered.