Domain Advice

[Jaylee]

I have recently received a cease and desist for trademark violation on a domain and website that I currently operate on my free time.
I have changed the on-line meaning and content to better fill the requests and currently I am thinking that changing the content is not enough
but they are unhappy with me using the domain name itself. I really don't want to release the domain name, but I am not familiar with law and would
like some free consultation on this matter if you could provide it for me.

The date they want me to comply is November 10th, 2000 and its coming around the corner quickly, if you could contact me at this email
or my home email @ [email protected] soon I would greatly appreciate it.

Thank You

Jason Lee

 

[lawrat]

I am a law school graduate. What I offer is mere information, not to be construed as forming an attorney client relationship.

Who are they? IF you are sitting on a name that should belong to them, then you can be considered squatting.

Famous case: owner of madonna.com had to give it up to madonna.

 

[Jaylee]

I'm not squating, I have a website that could be a shortened version of what their website is.... I.e. www.sprinttelephone.com and www.sprinttele.com

thats about the closest example I can give.

[This message has been edited by Jaylee (edited November 06, 2000).]

 

[lawrat]

There still might be a problem because if their name is trademarked and your domain name looks similar (like in california dot coms are registered as a business without the .com part), then you are out of luck.

 

[Jaylee]

so are you saying that because I have a ****.com site that I am considered a business?

I did not know this... so does that mean I have to get a .org or some other .something to be ok from this?

 

[Jaylee]

I would also like to question that if for example of course, the site that was calling for a cease and desist, say www.sprinttelephone.com wanted me to stop using www.sprinttele.com, couldnt I just say that tele could be the abbreviation for television or something other than telephone, I mean there could be alot of different "sprint" type trademarks out there, if my area revolved around something other than what they are, could they still get away with it?

 

[HomeGuru]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jaylee:
I have recently received a cease and desist for trademark violation on a domain and website that I currently operate on my free time.
I have changed the on-line meaning and content to better fill the requests and currently I am thinking that changing the content is not enough
but they are unhappy with me using the domain name itself. I really don't want to release the domain name, but I am not familiar with law and would
like some free consultation on this matter if you could provide it for me.

The date they want me to comply is November 10th, 2000 and its coming around the corner quickly, if you could contact me at this email
or my home email @ [email protected] soon I would greatly appreciate it.

Thank You

Jason Lee<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Apparently your domain name includes the name that is already trademarked by this company. You must comply.

 

[Jaylee]

Lets say a company trademarks "dark" for chocolate, indeed they own the trademark and rights to "dark" for chocolate. Meaning anyone out there that infringes on that and creates another "dark" for chocolate would be wrong and violate that trademark.

My point is that many people can trademark "dark" as long as it doesn't apply to chocolate. A person could trademark "dark" for tea, or "dark" for coffee beans, and they should be clear from any sort of trademark infringement because those trademarks for "dark" don't apply to chocolate.

To continue this, the company that trademarks "dark" for chocolate, buys the domain name and creates a site for "www.darkchocolate.com".

Later on down the road, not knowing there is a trademark for "dark" and chocolate, I go and purchase a domain and create a site for "www.darkcoco.com" cuase I want to have a site about dark brown colors and not "dark" chocolate.

Now lets say my dark coco site might be about coffee beans, or something of the coco color, but it doesn't pertain to chocolate as what the other company has their "dark" trademarked for. My question is, am I guilty of trademark infringement for running a site called www.darkcoco.com cause it may mean to some people dark chocolate even though on my site it says it does not and my site clearly states that it doesn’t nor does it resemble the other site or compete or is there to make a profit, do I have to give up my domain name because it may seem too similar?

With that, can I trademark “dark” for coco
and then have my "www.darkcoco.com" site?

Does this make any sense?

I hope this clarifies things cause of the people that replied none have yet to answer this simple question.

 

[lawrat]

But your confusion is this:

dark for chocolate by helen grace will not confused with dark for chocolate by hershey. DARK is not trademarked. The whole title/logo is.

And dark for chocolate would never be confused with dark for tea.

 

[Jaylee]

a descriptive word for one could not possibly be mistaken for the other.....

thank you so much