Rich Jerk wants to Sue me!

Axia12 thats a good point man lol

 

(1) Its just a scare. to try to get you to give up the domain name.
(2) To trademark a name you are not just trade marking "rich jerk" you would also trademark the style, color etc. I have tried to trademark a the name "B.A.D." (balloonist against drugs) and was turned down because it was a common word and it didn't have any style to trademark. The fact that you added therichjerkscam or richjerkscam removes it from his trademark claim

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (also known as Truth in Domain Names Act), a United States federal law enacted in 1999, is part of A bill to amend the provisions of title 17, United States Code, and the Communications Act of 1934, relating to copyright licensing and carriage of broadcast signals by satellite (S. 1948). It makes people who register domain names that are either trademarks or individual's names with the sole intent of selling the rights of the domain name to the trademark holder or individual for a profit liable to civil action. It was sponsored by Senator Trent Lott on November 17, 1999, and enacted on November 29 of the same year. The ACPA is codified at 15 U.S.C. § 1125(d).

In order for a trademark owner to bring a claim under the ACPA, the owner must establish

the trademark owner’s mark is distinctive or famous;
the domain name owner acted in bad faith to profit from the mark; and
the domain name and the trademark are either identical or confusingly similar (or dilutive for famous trademarks).
One of the limitations of the Act is the impact on settling disputes: where two parties have a dispute over a domain name, and the domain name owner has a lesser interest in the domain and is willing to settle the dispute, if the domain name owner offers to exchange the domain name for compensation (such as the cost of reprinting letterhead, business cards, and other expenses), that offer can constitute "acting in bad faith to profit from the mark". This makes domain name disputes harder to resolve.

A significant provision of the Act enables trademark holders to bring lawsuits in rem (against the domain name), instead of against the registrant of the domain name. However, the in rem prong of the Act may only be invoked where the trademark holder is unable to obtain personal jurisdiction over the registrant or is unable to locate the registrant through good faith efforts specified in the Act (15 U.S.C. 1125(d)(2)(a)).

The act consists of several amendments to the Trademark Act of 1946 to provide protection from Cybersquatters to trademark holders, a section providing similar protections for individuals' names, an amendment to the National Historic Preservation Act (16 U.S.C. 470a(a)(1)(A)), protecting the names of historical sites. It also includes a savings clause stating that it does not take away from individuals' rights to free speech, and some amendments to the United States Code removing hyphens from several instances of the word trademark. Most of the act applies retroactively to all domain names, however the damages made possible by the act only apply to domain names registered after it was enacted.

 

Not sure if this has already been mentioned in the thread, since I don't want to read through the many pages, but if he really had in-house lawyers, why wouldn't they be the ones writing the multiple e-mails to you instead of the CEO? Surely it would cost the same either way.

 

I know this is an old thread, but this is listed on page one of a Google search, so I want to add this link so others wil not be ripped off by this guy.

By the way, there is no staff. It is just him, and his near-dead site.

He makes up a bunch of names to make it look like his has some sort of company.

The "CEO" had me in tears.

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=734035

 

well i grabbed his ebook from a 'source' (RJ book) and tbh all the info provided in the pages of it you will find all the same info here on DP,def not worth the money for someone to invest in thats for sure

im no copywrite.TM guru though,but in reading the disclaimers in the book itself he seems quite serious about protecting his product and anything associated with it,i have seen some saying for you to move offshore,which is great for the content of your site,but if your registrar is buckling to the threats you may still be screwed,as others have said get a new domain and 301 it so the traffic directs to your new domain

 

I'm not a lawyer but I can see you're using a lot of trademark "RICH JERK" in the site.

Perhaps you should change that to something less obvious - RICHJERK maybe. Even Google thought "Goojje" very similar to its name.

 

i think even though he holds the trade mark with that "Rich Jerk", you still the one who owns the domain... by the way if he really wants to get rid of your domain he must buy it at your selling price... because you're the first one to register that site its not your problem anymore if he didn't get the traffic he wants if your site gets the rank1...

 

Now I know this thread is old/over but if he changed it to R1chJ3rkscams.com would that have made a difference... arguably doesnt in fact have the same 'trademarked' name in it? lol

 

I dont think you infringe RichJerk TM. First, you are not creating confusion or competing with Rich Jerk. Second, your website category is not same as Financial services.

Simply referencing to ACPA act does not mean ACPA is Kelly's brother or sister's company where he will call and they will belt the rocket. I checked the Trademark application, it's goods and services definition is "Electronic publications, namely, books featuring information about how to make money on the Internet, recorded on computer media". Your website is totally different.

You can respond back to Kelly to let know that your website does not fall under the purview of their TM definition of Goods and Services, nor does it have any intention to infringe TM. Still if they pursue this baseless and illogical blame, the cost of legal proceedings and the opportunity cost will have to be born by CPI.

 

Hey, did anybody hear that Elvis had died?

 

Dont raise posts from dead please,
thanks, that is all
Nigel