Let's suppose that you are the owner of Cutesy-Poo Inc. Your store sells clothing, furniture, baby supplies and toys for infants and toddlers.

Several years ago, you put the company on-line. Customers can visit your Website, look over your catalog, get product information, and order using credit cards. Your site, naturally, is http://www.cutesy-poo.com. You liked the name and you registered it with InterNIC, which exists to handle such details.

By now, Cutesy-Poo experiences real revenue from the World Wide Web. You have customers nationally and in many foreign countries. Your home page is important and probably will grow rapidly in importance as time passes.

For you, however, time is up. Your spouse announces that you will retire, smell some flowers, visit some grandkids and do some travel. So you find a buyer, John Cribbuster, who is even more enthusiastic about Internet commerce than you are.

Cribbuster wants the furniture, fixtures and equipment, your inventory, your lease and, of course, the right to use Cutesy-Poo in cyberspace.

LESS COMPLEX THAN TAXES
You can take heart. Transferring domain names isn't as complicated as filing taxes. All but total disorganization marks the Web. The only organized part of it registers domain names.

Network Solutions, or InterNIC, of Herndon, Va., registers domain names. That's where you go to find out about transferring Cutesy-Poo to Cribbuster. Network Solutions works under a government contract. It's not surprising that as the Web grows, InterNIC's bureaucratic attitudes grow right along with it.

Most of the time, a simple document called an "assignment" transfers intangible rights such as those to a domain name. This is usually a preprinted form which takes just a few minutes to complete. Your lawyer can do it, and it won't cost much.

SHOT DOWN
However, your lawyer may spend hours figuring out how to transfer Cutesy-Poo. Count on spending hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars. Fortunately, there's help.

The official InterNIC process for selling domain names includes only five steps. The catch is that you must do them 100 percent correctly or InterNIC will shoot you down.

If that happens, Cribbuster probably will sue you. He paid good money for Cutesy-Poo, and he won't be happy when InterNIC interferes with his big plans.

Step One is easy. You and the buyer agree to sale and purchase of http://www.cutesy-poo.com. The buyer pays the price, or part of it. Since the rule calls for payment, the domain name's transfer probably will take place after the rest of the deal closes. That means your deal will need lots of contractual language governing what happens if attempts to sell the Cutesy-Poo domain name fall through.

Closing the deal occurs when all the papers necessary to complete a transaction are ready for signature. As a rule, it's the last step in a transaction. Tasks to be done after closing, however, aren't all that unusual.

DEALING WITH REJECTION
Pay attention, because this is where it gets tricky.
In Step Two, Cribbuster, the buyer, gets on his computer and applies for the domain name. You absolutely must submit this application on the e-mail version of the InterNIC form.

If the two of you do this right, InterNIC rejects Cribbuster's application because you already own the domain name. However, InterNIC sends out a "tracking number," which is key.

Step Three is a biggie: The Domain Name Registration Agreement. You may need help from your accountant and your mother-in-law on this one. To get this form, access http://rs.internic.net/templates/domain-template.txt. When you request the registration agreement, you'll get two messages, one of them a number.

InterNIC regulations require that you ignore the second message, so we won't bother with it.

MORE FORMS
Next, download a second big form, the Registration Name Change Agreement. Look for it at http://rs.internic.net/reg-change/agreement.html. Then fill out the first form, and Parts 1 and 3 of the second. Then sign the forms before a notary public.

Cribbuster then fills out the rest of the form and off it goes by mail only to InterNIC in Virginia. E-mail or faxes aren't accepted.

InterNIC accepts these documents only at 505 Huntmar Park Drive, Herndon, Va. 20170, Attn: Registrant Change Group.

In Step 4, once Network Solutions has the forms, perfectly filled in, it verifies them and makes necessary changes in its database. These changes are expected to hit the Internet in a few days. InterNIC will send Cribbuster an invoice, which if not paid, blows the whole process.

Finally, in Step 5, InterNIC requires that you stop using the Cutesy-Poo domain name and to stop completely. You must toss all your old business cards, letterheads, company baseball caps, and all the rest of that stuff. Cribbuster now can use the domain name as he pleases.

This whole process is new. It shouldn't take the average lawyer, mother-in-law or accountant more than six or eight months to get through it, unless, of course, InterNIC changes the rules again.

Martin Paskind is an Albuquerque lawyer. His practice emphasizes legal services to small businesses. Questions or comments can be mailed to him in care of the Albuquerque Journal, P.O. Drawer J, Albuquerque, N.M. 87103. This column is not intended to provide legal advice to any specific person, or with respect to any particular problems or situations.

For advice on specific problems and circumstances, contact your attorney.