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Domain Name Take Over

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dmunoz

Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Florida

We have received "Unauthorized Use and Registration" for a particular domain name direct from a confirmed Law Firm. I have looked up the legitimacy of this Law Firm and the Lawyer who issued it. She does have legitimacy in this area of Trademarks so it is not some type of scam. In fact, the Law Firm holds 3 filings for this particular trademark found on www.traemarkia.com but it is only part of a trademark name and not the full name. Someone else owns the entire name but is located in Europe. The European owner name is in an entirely different industry.

To explain further, lets say I have tool.com and I have combined it with machinenametool.com. "Machine Name" is in question even though Machine Name does not sell tools but the entire machine.

Our nature and business is we sell tools that fit onto their machine. We do have a relationship with the machine manufacture in where they come standard on their machine.

We understand this could jeopardize our relationship if we do not comply but at the same time, we feel they could easily walk out of our relationship in the future based on movement from our competitor to sell cheaper tools if they give up quality.

Do they have grounds to pull our domain name away from us? We are working on a landing page but it is not complete. Right now, it is being forwarded over to our main website.

Look forward to reading different view points.

Thank you for your time,

A Concerned Domain Name Owner
 
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FlyingRon

Senior Member
It sounds like you are on really shaky ground. If they have a trademark and you just added tool to it in away that arises confusion or dilutes their famous mark, you're in violation.

It doesn't take even a preponderance of evidence to lose an domain dispute.
 

dmunoz

Junior Member
FlyingRon,

Thank you for your quick response.

What are the rules in terms of trademark naming convention? In other words, if a company trademarks a name called "C Machine" but I use only "Machine", would I still be in violation of using part of the word?

Does the rule of changing a trademark 20% still apply? Could I apply for a trademark name called Machine Tool even though no one has that particular phrase? This would be for profit.

Thanks
Rick
 

dmunoz

Junior Member
Nothing has happened so I guess I will continue to wait and see what happens. I did not make any contact with the ensuing firm.

I still have questions about....

What are the rules in terms of trademark naming convention? In other words, if a company trademarks a name called "C Machine" but I use only "Machine", would I still be in violation of using part of the word?

Does the rule of changing a trademark 20% still apply? Could I apply for a trademark name called Machine Tool even though no one has that particular phrase? This would be for profit.
Thanks in advance
 

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