Question for storm
KatsCards
Posts: 559
I may have a problem on my hands and figured I'd ask storm for some advice...
I've owned a .com for 11 years now. There is no site up on it except the standard network solutions under construction page. Back two years ago, someone offered to buy the name from me, to which I declined. That person then went and registered the .net extension and put a site up. They also trademarked the name (just the name, not with the .net). So I get an email today that they saw my site (an under construction page) and didn't think that I was aware they owned the trademark and therefore were letting me know. They also went as far as to threaten that they will be contacting their trademark lawyer to find out how much they should ask for for me to continue running my site (an under construction page from network solutions). How much trouble am I in????
I've owned a .com for 11 years now. There is no site up on it except the standard network solutions under construction page. Back two years ago, someone offered to buy the name from me, to which I declined. That person then went and registered the .net extension and put a site up. They also trademarked the name (just the name, not with the .net). So I get an email today that they saw my site (an under construction page) and didn't think that I was aware they owned the trademark and therefore were letting me know. They also went as far as to threaten that they will be contacting their trademark lawyer to find out how much they should ask for for me to continue running my site (an under construction page from network solutions). How much trouble am I in????
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Comments
In Lamparello v. Falwell, however, the court clarified that a finding of initial interest confusion is contingent on financial profit from said confusion, such that, if a domain name confusing similar to a registered trademark is used for a non-trademark related website, the site owner will not be found to have infringed where he does not seek to capitalize on the mark's goodwill for his own commercial enterprises.
Furthermore, you should know that:
Wrongful or groundless threats of infringement
Various jurisdictions have laws which are designed to prevent trademark owners from making wrongful threats of trademark infringement action against other parties. These laws are intended to prevent large or powerful companies from intimidating or harassing smaller companies.
Where one party makes a threat to sue another for trademark infringement, but does not have a genuine basis or intention to carry out that threat, or does not carry out the threat at all within a certain period, the threat may itself become a basis for legal action [9]. In this situation, the party receiving such a threat may seek from the Court, a declaratory judgment; also known as a declaratory ruling.
<< <i>No expert but I believe you have to have something up on it or than can get you for "homesteading". >>
Just got off the phone with network solutions, and their under construction page has been up there since 2006, which predates the trademark by two years.
They can have all the other domains you control the .com
Steve
But, anybody can sue anybody for anything; there does not need to
be ANY merit to a claim for it to be filed.
I would NOT respond to the letter from the TM owner.
If the TM-owner has a lawyer write to you, simply take the letter -
and your other docs relating to the matter - to your lawyer. He
will solve your problem.
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Folks should consider TMing things they plan to use for a long time.
Illiterate folks should hire a lawyer to do it.
Literate folks can use a service and save some cash. (Lots of lawyers
use the same service and charge the client extra for the work.)
TM menu
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