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trademarking company name & requesting website domain under cibersquatting, feasible?

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elfelround

Junior Member
trademarking company name & requesting website domain under cibersquatting, feasible?

I am having problems with people domain mining (society's scum), those who basically buy thousands of domains cheap which they basically do not use at all and force the ones who actually need them for their company to buy them at astronomic prices...

I read you can request a domain under cibersquatting if someone bought the domain to which you own the TM, domain miners do not trade mark because TMarking is more expensive than registering domains. for example lets say you register cocacolawinter.com then cocacola can request that domain, or tokyoolympics

since i want to open a company for this website

can I, under this basis, register the company, trademark its name and then request a website domain which has been registered by a domain miner to be delivered to me without having to bid/purchase under cibersquatting laws?

my concern may be TMarking the name "after" the person has already purchased the domain

just to make it clear I am talking about .com domains here


Cheers
 


quincy

Senior Member
I am having problems with people domain mining (society's scum), those who basically buy thousands of domains cheap which they basically do not use at all and force the ones who actually need them for their company to buy them at astronomic prices...

I read you can request a domain under cibersquatting if someone bought the domain to which you own the TM, domain miners do not trade mark because TMarking is more expensive than registering domains. for example lets say you register cocacolawinter.com then cocacola can request that domain, or tokyoolympics

since i want to open a company for this website

can I, under this basis, register the company, trademark its name and then request a website domain which has been registered by a domain miner to be delivered to me without having to bid/purchase under cibersquatting laws?

my concern may be TMarking the name "after" the person has already purchased the domain

just to make it clear I am talking about .com domains here


Cheers
What is the name of your state or, if not in the US, what is the name of your country?

In the US, trademark rights are gained by the use of the mark in commerce as an identifier for a company, its products or its services. Although a trademark holder potentially can prevent a domain name holder from using their trademark in a domain name, a domain name holder who does not have a trademark on the name cannot prevent a company from using the domain name as a trademark.

If a domain name registrant is registering domain names in bad faith - for example, registering names that contain registered trademarks for the purpose of selling the domain name to the trademark holder - the domain name can be taken away from this "cybersquatter."

Cyber squatting violates US federal law and international rules that govern domain name ownership.
 

FlyingRon

Senior Member
You can't hijack someone else's domain just because you after the fact created a company or trademark that uses that name. The Anti Cybersquatting provision was designed to deal with people who squat in bad faith on existing company names/trademarks. It harkens back to the early nineties, when a buddy of mine who was employed by one of the long distance carriers (Sprint I think at the time), decided to go register the domains of the competitors who didn't yet have them: MCI.COM, etc...

Understand that a UDRP action isn't cheap. It will take several thousand just to get to the arbitration and you don't get anything back, win or lose.

Unfortunately, UDRP isn't any sane rule of law, so I've seen arbitrartors make really bogus decisions on things. Of course, you can stlil end up in federal court.
You want to have fun, read this saga : http://www.nissan.com/Lawsuit/The_Story.php. Even his "fee" award was only 10% of what it cost him.
 

quincy

Senior Member
You can't hijack someone else's domain just because you after the fact created a company or trademark that uses that name. The Anti Cybersquatting provision was designed to deal with people who squat in bad faith on existing company names/trademarks. It harkens back to the early nineties, when a buddy of mine who was employed by one of the long distance carriers (Sprint I think at the time), decided to go register the domains of the competitors who didn't yet have them: MCI.COM, etc...

Understand that a UDRP action isn't cheap. It will take several thousand just to get to the arbitration and you don't get anything back, win or lose.

Unfortunately, UDRP isn't any sane rule of law, so I've seen arbitrartors make really bogus decisions on things. Of course, you can stlil end up in federal court.
You want to have fun, read this saga : http://www.nissan.com/Lawsuit/The_Story.php. Even his "fee" award was only 10% of what it cost him.
There are also many companies with federally registered trademarks that share or have similar names but cannot use their trademarks in their web addresses. There can only be one name for each domain address so there can only be one domain name that uses just the trademark (although there can be variations if these variations don't work to confuse consumers).

The first to register the domain name that uses the trademark for their company, therefore, will have rights to the domain name with the trademark and the other companies with the same or similar names must use another name for their web address.

Unless the trademark is famous (like Coca-Cola), a domain name can be registered with a trademark and there might be little a trademark holder can do to prevent the use.

You might want to check out companies that share the same or similar names to see the different web addresses that are used.
 

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