Domain Legal Help?

My company originally registered the co.uk variation of our name, since then our company has received a large amount of press, in national as well as local newspapers, as well as some large news websites.

We then thought we should register the other varations of our domain, we got the .net,.info etc... but someone registered the .com

I contacted him and he said he wants $xxx for the domain and is planning to setup a web design company (same name as my company )

Im convinced he has just registered it to make a quick buck.

What can I do from now? He is ignoring my emails, is it worth a trip to my lawyers? Or is there a easier way?

cheers

 

Was your company the first one to use the name for this particular type of usage?

If you can register a trademark on the name (UK also recognizes common law marks) it will give you more options to protect the mark.

Paying $xxx for the domain is going to be far cheaper than any action you could take to recover the domain (and that's assuming you have trademark rights to it). Even a UDRP will run $1,500 to $4,000 and you don't get that money back. Even a registered trademark doesn't automatically give you exclusive rights to usage of a name in all classifications. A lot also depends on the actual name.

 

Add to that, it would only work if the domain is registered after the trademark was registered, I don’t think it would help in this case.

 

That's not true. A common law trademark requires no registration, only first usage (not just before the other party). A lot is going to depend on how unique the name is and whether or not this person actually puts up a site that infringes upon a marks usage - still you are looking at spending thousands, or tens of thousands, in legal fees to try and recover the name. Paying under $1,000 for the name is going to be the cheapest way to get the domain.

 

thanks for you help, looks like the rat is gonna rip me off

 

Unfortunately this happens quite alot, the culprits know that not many people want to go to court, even if the name is trademarked, they rather fork out a couple of hundred than having to waste a lot of time and money over a courtcase.