I have recently purchased a domain name from sedo. The name isnt a trade mark, but it is used as a trading name by someone else in another country. They are now trying to claim rights to the domain name. As i own examplename.com and they own example-name.com, the same just with the hyphen. As have only recently purchased the domain name so there is no website yet. how do i prove that the name wasnt brought in bad faith ? Where do i stand, they are not willing to make a offer for the purchase for the name either , they claim that they want it or will be taking legal action ?
it's simple. setup your own company in your country and patent the name and act fast. they could not claim if you have patent the name and they didn't even you can sue them back for cyber squatting
You have no idea of what you are talking about. You don't patent names. It doesn't matter if you set up a company. This is a trademark issue. Common law trademark rights are established by first usage in a particular classification. It is your responsibility to check for prior usage before you register a domain. It really doesn't matter if you knew the company existed or not. If they were the first to register the domain, they have already established prior usage. Generic terms like "Apple" cannot be trademarked for a usage about "fruit" but can certainly be a trademark for another classification (like computers or music). If this other party was the first to use the name for a particular usage, they do have rights to the name. The hyphen doesn't matter. A lot is going to depend on the actual name and whether is can be used in another classification (i.e. apple.com could be used for a lot of different things - applecomputers.com is going to be infringement even if you used it to sell shirts. What you can't do with the domain is use it in a similar manner (i.e. if their site is electronic related, you can't use the domain for anything electronic related). You might be able to use it for something entirely different (again it really depends on the actual name). Offering to sell a domain to a trademark holder is something you should never do. It can be used to prove bad faith and cybersquatting (with a fine of up to $100,000). The company can certainly sue you - whether or not they will win is something that an intellectual property rights attorney could advise you on. It then comes down to whether or not you want to spend a considerable amount of money (could easily be tens of thousands of dollars) to defend the right to keep the domain. What you don't want to do is to set up a website that has anything to do with the type of business or sector they are in. The other company is not obligated to pay you any money for the domain if it is indeed infringing upon their mark.
This is not true if they are not doing business where you are. There is probably a "City Cleaners" and a "Park Café" and a "Downtown Hardware" and a "Great Wall Chinese Takeout" in every city in the USA, and none of them has grounds for action against any other, because the scope of their business operations is local. The first one among them who registered a given domain name (for example downtownhardware.com) gets to keep it.
Put a site on the domain, rather than leaving it parked. Hard to advise without knowing what the domain is, but I'm sure you can come up with something that looks relevant and a fair use of the domain.
Unfortunately there have been decisions where doing that was taken to mean the respondent was trying to avoid liability. If the other party has screenshots of the domain name prior to contacting the OP, then putting up a site may be too late.
Actually, you started your post with "This is a trademark issue" and then proceeded to give an inaccurate exposition about trademark law, which I corrected.
No, you gave examples of genericized names that don't fall under trademark protection. The poster was talking about domain names, and regardless of whether or not the domain name is used by a local, one person business, it is still protected from infringement from other similar/confusing domain names. This isn't a consumer market issue, but a global one by virtue of being the "Internet".
He said its owned by someone in another country. Its impossible to advise though without more facts - if a carpet cleaner in Mumbai has an online site with carpetcleaners.com and someone else sets up a company in New York and calls it carpet-cleaners.com the Mumbai one has no claim. Darkshark, is it a generic name, or have you taken a domain in a made up word (like yahoo or bebo or something?)
You can still be guilty of trademark infringement regardless of where you operate your business. Once a domain name is registered and used, the user obtains common law trademark rights, providing the name can be a trademark. You couldn't claim trademark rights to "Carpet Cleaner". Mumbai has also just joined the Madrid Protocol. Using a trademark "steals visitors" by getting them to click a link to its website by creating a likelihood of confusion with the mark holders site. A disclaimer on the site can only be seen after they have had the benefit of the visitor traffic.
If the term is a generic description of something, and one person operates solely in one country, they will never succeed in any action against someone using that same name elsewhere in the world.
Let's put it this way, folks. We can put in as many arguments as we want. But without knowing fully any and all possibly relevant facts of the OP's situation, no one in this forum or on any part of this earth can give the OP a straight-out answer covering all and any aspects of his or her question. Unfortunately by giving specifics in an online forum that can be seen in search engines, s/he risks the other party finding it and possibly using it to build their "case" further. This is one main reason why it's better to ask a licensed legal expert with real-world experience in these things, especially if they've gotten a "cease and desist" letter from them by that time. I'll say this much, though: if the other party can demonstrate the term is used distinctively to identify the source of the good or service in commerce, then it can be a safe bet they have a trademark for it. How the OP can prove that there's no bad faith intent isn't going to be found here, and no one can even guarantee 100% it'll work. If anyone here is willing (foolishly?) to guarantee what you know will work for the OP, then feel free to do so at your own risk.
They can take the domain if they want. You can't use a trademarked name in a domain I've seen companies like Ford take them from legit people.