Hi, What I meant by licensed is that my client has a license from the manufacturer of the vacuum products to sell the products just like any other dealer has and just like the plaintiff has. Bestvacuum.com is trying to knock out his competition by unfair tactics based on the size of his wallet and it is unfair. If bestvacuum.com really cared about their mark they would have BOUGHT ALL SIMILIAR NAMES when they had the chance. The fact that he didn't shows he didn't care enough about his so-called brand to protect it. We bought this name after he started suing this other poor chap, why didn't he buy it while he was "defending his trademark". I'll tell you why... because we just started showing up in the SERPs, now they selectively claimed the domain name, after we invested our SEO...how is this possible. I think we should sue the DN registrar for selling us a name that belongs to someone else... Maybe we have a case with godaddy.... I don't know if anyone caught in the above documents the part about the surveys bestvacuum.com submitted as evidence in their trial... hysterical.
You know, that's a "common" argument I've seen a lot of people use. And for certain reasons that makes sense. But here's another way to look at it: Microsoft didn't register, say, 1000 typos or variations of their trademark. At, say, $7 a pop, that's $70,000 for a year, not inclusive of paying other expenses. Microsoft probably didn't see doing that as a practical thing to do. How about others who really want to keep their costs down? OTOH, Angelina and Brad had people register as many domain name variations of their baby's name as possible. They probably don't mind the expense since it does what they want and expect. It's a cost/benefit analysis. Of course, it's up to each party to decide what's the most practical move for a certain thing on their own. You can certainly try to sue Go Daddy for that. Call me pessimistic, but you've got no case against them if you especially didn't read your contract. But didn't you say at the onset it's your client who received the C&D and not you? Are you sure you want to get involved in their potential dispute? One other thing I forgot to mention: your posting specific details about it here in an online forum is also potentially giving the other party more ammo. If I'm in your shoes, I'd stop posting and talk to a lawyer right away as you've been told from the beginning.
Dave you do a great job trying to explain things to people. Many people can't get over the notion that people can actually OWN the rights to use certain words in certain circumstants - and prevent others from using them. The law is clear that one need not purchase every iteration of a name to protect yourself. That is just kneejerk response that lay people throw out, but it is meaningless. There are many here who also think that the infringing name needs to be an exact copy, not just somthing similar. Again, not true, it is the likelyhood of confusion that matters. As in all legal cases, nothing is black and white, and theoreticlly they could prevail against a claim of infringment in court - but as you have said many times the expense of that defense would be thousands of dollars. Most of the people posting their â„¢ questions on DP have no ability and no intention of spending those sums to defend their infringing name. Most of these threads give people the wrong idea that they should keep the name and challenge the â„¢ holder. In most circumstances that is poor advice. It hurts me to read all these legal threads, because people are getting seriously bad advice. This OP, for example, if he had any intention of fighting to keep this domain should NEVER have posted here. This entire thread, his posts on this forum, unrelated to that domain, are all evidence that can be used by his adversary.