Calling all with experience in domain name disputes

[Mort]

Hi all

Right, background is that my boss started this company 2-3 years ago. He left his previous job basically because his boss was a knob, when he left, 3 or 4 others followed suit as they were fed up for the same reasons.

Anyways this break off group all started working together under a new company, which I now work for.

Basically the boss of the previous company is a nasty bit of work, and registered the .com address of the domain as soon as he heard what the company was to be called. In the start we were design only so all the web stuff wasnt a priority, so a co.uk domain sufficed. Now we are going all guns blazing on the web side of things obviously we want our .com address back, so not wanting to rock the boat we waited patiently until it was released.

On the day of expiration the ****er renewed it, and we were wondering what exactly can we do about it? Obviously if there are going to be massive court fees then its not worth it for a domain name, but on the other hand what this guy is doing is just spiteful and not on.

So where do we stand, what can we do etc? We have a copyright on the name of the business, the guy isnt using the .com for anything its totally empty.

Have researched into the ICANN domain name disputes but it would be handy to have the say of someone who has been here already.

Cheers

 

[growse]

*So utterly not a lawyer*

As far as I know, if you own the trademark and the other guy can't prove he's using it for anything useful (this has quite a broad definition, if he has even a blog on it, that counts as 'useful' I believe), then you may have a valid claim on it. A lawyer would be your best port of call.

 

[Mort]

yeah thats what I have gathered from reading various sites, just wondering if we would have to pay the court fees etc if it did go that far, or if we could make the other guy pay up.

he has nothing on the site at all, he is only parking on it just to pee off my boss

 

[growse]

yeah thats what I have gathered from reading various sites, just wondering if we would have to pay the court fees etc if it did go that far, or if we could make the other guy pay up.

he has nothing on the site at all, he is only parking on it just to pee off my boss

Shouldn't cost too much to just start legal precedings. You may find that after the threat of court action he gives it up quite easily.

 

[stoofa]

Just becuase the domain doesn't appear to be in use is not a valid argument.
A domain name can be used for many things which wouldn't be visible to the outside world.
I have domain names that resolve to no website at all - however they are used for email for example.
Another domain name I own is used purely for my personal name servers.

You can make a claim under the trademark as long as the trademark was established before the domain was registered.
So if this bloke "heard" about the name of the company and registered the domain name and the company didn't in turn get the trademark until say a month later then things will be in favour of the current holder.

Although your side of this story indicates this is a squatting issue, this will not neccessarily be how it is viewed from outside.
If the guy has contacted you about selling the domain then this gives you an extremely strong case - as it would indicate that he registered the domain with the express plan on making money from it from a specific person.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with "Domain Speculation" - buying what sounds like a good domain name and then selling it at a vast profit later.
This is not squatting - just good business sense.

Domain disputes have to be done through ICANN or rather one of their approved dispute agents.
It might be worth taking a read through some of the information here:

http://www.icann.org/udrp/udrp.htm

 

[Mort]

I very much doubt he is using it for email or name servers. He COULD be using it for email to pickup any emails that were meant for us as a form of spying on us but I doubt it.

Even if he was using the domain name for his own emails or whatever, why does he need the .com version of our address for it?

And we owned the trademark first, definitley, he was just being a knob We are going to see how the legal proceedings take us, I cant see him having a leg to stand on in all honesty.

Cheers for the tips guys!