Is there any legal implication / liabilities in buying / owning any domains previously owned by a company gone bankrupt? Please comment...
You been drinking too many beers this holiday weekend? If a domain or any domain is avail to register then you are free to do so...even if a BK company still owns domains in their register, you will not be able to get them until they expire, then anyone can register them.
There may still be trademark issues. Trademarks and business names are assets. When a company goes bankrupt their assets are sold to or assigned to some one else. Check the uspto.gov site to see if there are any trademarks. http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=tess&state=dresuq.1.1
Tobycoke brought up a good point. This is what I'm curious to find out. Two scenarios could happen: 1. New owner picked up the bankrupted company and inherited the trademark ownership. In this case, I may infringe the copyright if my domain name is in conflict with their trademark. Am I correct? 2. Assuming no one bought the company. Who would own the trademark? Will anyone be able to register the trademark again? If I register the domain now and someone register the trademark later, will they have the right to sue me?
I agree with Tobycoke, if there is a Trademark, you could have issues. 1) Yes, in bankruptcy the assets are almost always sold. This means someone will own the trademark if there was one. 2) If no one bought the company, I would assume (but I'm ot 100% sure) the original registrar owns the trademark. If the original registrar was the corporation (not an individual) then it might not be owned by anyone. Here is a bit of advice not mentioned yet: just don't do it. I know there is the potential to earn an income from a domain like this, but you are taking a chance. Say, for example, someone thinks they own it, but don't... they could sue you and then find out after you attorney has billed you 10 hours, that they don't actually own it so they drop the suit. A dropped lawsuit can be expensive... so just weigh the potential gains and losses. Good luck!
I just came up with another questions: 3. If the domain was previouly selling products / services, the customers lost their monies after it went into bankrupt. Will they be able to sue the new domain owner for loss after starting the site for business?
4. No. But, they don't know you're the new owner, so that will not keep them from emailing you every day or threatening to sue. I forgot to mention, as always, to be extremely safe, buy the domain with a LLC or Corporation, not as an individual.
Question # 4 agian ! It is an interesting one. 4. What if the new domain owner is a 2 year-old boy? He owns nothing but his Transformer toys. Can they go after him or his parents / guardians?
A 2 year old can't legally enter into contracts ...including buying domains. The registrar's TOS will require you be at least 18. So yes, this dodge won't work & they can go after the legal guardian. When you go into bankruptcy the bankruptcy court takes over your assets then sells or disposes of them. Trademarks would remain with the court until they decide what to do with them..they don't disappear onto a black hole. BTW...IANAL!
There are always legal implication when buying or selling company domains, bankrupt or not, doesn't really matter. Specially if the domain name represents the company name, you'll be in serious jeopardy as one would expect you to be.
What if the domain is registered under a Canadian corp. and it register the trademark in Canada at a later time, can the new bankrupted company owner do anything? I don't know how it works when it is outside US.
It can get complicated and not without risk..but you might want to use a Canadian registrar (like Tucows), Canadian hosting, and non US registrant data. Hidden WHOIS will not help you as registrars will cave and undo private WHOIS under allegations & legal pressure (including DCMA notices which are easy & cheap). Tucows could be a good choice as a registrar. They are in Canada and in 2003 an Alabama bankruptcy court ordered them to turn over the domain of bankruptee PetsWarehouse. Tucows complied but is now fighting a lawsuit against them, by the original owner, that they had no legal obligation to obey a foreign county's bankruptcy court. I doubt Tucows will be so quick to comply in the future. http://www.dynamoo.com/diary/pets_warehouse.htm