It's not copyrite infringment 99.99% of the time unless your in the same niche and may confuse people into thinking your that company.
I don't think that is what happened.. From the second or third post it sounds like they intentionally did squat on potential names that this company might use. IE this company has 50 domains with newyorkathome, phoenixathome, dallasathome, detroitathome and they run websites with them and have for a while. This partnership and went out and registered other domain with city prefixes, for what appears to be to infringe on the other companies business. This is by no means cut-and-dry, but it is not cut-and-dry for you either. I could easily see all of this going against you, as you would be hard pressed to prove innocent motivations here. I assume they were aware of the other company when they registered the domains.. and quite honestly the burden of proof will be on them to prove they did not know anything about them. Given the facts of the situation as presented here, and the fact that your partners want to bail.... I see it being foolish to try and fight this on your own. You do not sound like the point man for all of this, so you are going to fight a battle based on the motivations and actions of people who bailed out and ran away. That is very shaky ground to be fighting from.
You have done some homework, very nice. However, not all correct! Yes, the inspiration is to make money; however not at the oposition's expense. Of course we knew about this company prior, so did 100 million other people. No, we do not know about thier internal operations! Look, McDonalds builds a restaurant on the opposite corner of Burger King, should Burger King sue McDonalds for infringing on it's market? No! That would be crazy! Again, our web site do NOT represent the opositions in any manner. We did NOT contact the oposition to resell the domains.
Aeiouy; You are incorrect; this company does not run web sites with the above names (minus Detroit). However, I respect your reply! Look, if they wanted the names then this company should have gotten of their better half and purchased the names sooner! Simple!!! Our intentions are NOT to confuse the market! We see opportunity to make money just like they see the vision! What's next, there is a magazine title "cuisineathome.com". Are they next to be hauled into court? Hey, don't punish us because your domain guy fell asleep at the wheel! If you saw the opportunity, then the domains should had been purchased sooner! Don't blame us for your lack of good judgment or laziness. Sorry aeiouy, my emotions are taking over and this outburst is not directed towards you!
I am not sure regarding the law in the U.S. but in the Netherlands there was a similar case. A hosting company got sued for using the suffix ''4all'' and they did not have to turn their domain over to the suing party. It was XS4All that sued Networking4All for turning the domain over. Other cases where won though but that was regarding a prefix, the XS4 part. Why didn't your partners consulted a itlawyer? Ok if the funds are not present to pay for the lawyer then i can understand but as a company with a couple of partners involved there must have been some funds to pay for a 1-2 hour consultation? Contacting a lawyer in the field of IT is the best thing you can do to get the best advice on this subject.
Bartainer. I got your message and I am happy that I had been of some kind of help to you. Please consider my points and you will 99.99% get success in solving this issue without spending a dime.
I don't disagree with you.. but the way the facts are laid out, if you go into court without an attorney against even a medicore attorney you have a good chance of losing. They just have to raise enough suspicion to make it look like you guys were doing something underhanded, and if you can't disprove it, (and without any of your partners backing you it will be much more difficult.) I guess my question is to what end is this worth fighting. Are the domains this great that they are worth the potential consequences of losing? Or would you be better off just going out and getting some other domain names? The way you lay it out, you are going to go it alone with no representation and take on all the liability yourself. Given the circumstance I would advise you that is foolish unless there was some substantial upside. I don't know if any of your domains are developed yet or generating income, but if they are not then cutting bait is not such a bad option.
bartainer ... firstly I am not a lawyer so lets get this out of the way. Things to consider: 1) athome is a very very generic term and is used in everyday speak. I left my wallet at home. I'm meeting my wife at home! They (the thiefs) have no legal right to that term unless it has clearly been registered as a trademark. In the filing of the trademark, it will acknowledge the claims of use of the trademark. ie: the logo looks like this, we sell this product, we put this trademark on these things etc .. review that very carefully. 2) if they are the owners of athome.com then argue the fact (in court etc) that you are not impairing their ability to conduct business in anyway .. they can still do this: miami.athome.com newyork.athome.com OR athome.com/miami athome.com/newyork 3) you can argue that you are abiding by URL naming conventions and can't have spaces in the url. 4) the following show trademarks for "at home" and they be in breach of others trademarks depending on the usage descriptions http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfiel...h&a_search=Submit+Query&a_search=Submit+Query 4) the following 4 trademarks are LIVE for "athome america" (put http:// in front of those links) - tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=8rq558.11.2 - tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=8rq558.11.8 - tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=8rq558.11.11 - tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=8rq558.11.12 My take on this from what you've said and reading the trademarks is that there is little chance you will loose the case. What I would suggest is get the word out ... setup a site with all the specifics of what these bullies are trying to pull. Put a paypal donation button on the site to help cover your costs and finally get the word out through DIGG and press releases. I wouldn't give up the domain names if anything charge them big time! PS. Don't forget to get a lawyer and counter sue for damages
Go see an intellectual property rights attorney if you are serious about fighting for the domains. Trademark law can be very complicated and in theory, the company demanding you not use the domains could very well have legal rights to stop the use of similar service marks. A company CAN own the rights to a term, and adding additional words to the term does not get around infringement i.e. MyEbay dot whatever. This is meant as a general statement and not for your specific situation. You should also consider how deep are the pockets of the other company. A suit like this could very easily run six figures to defend. If you win, are the names worth the expense? You do NOT get your legal fees awarded to you even if you win. If you lose a Federal Trademark case, you can be required to pay treble legal costs of the other side. Generally speaking, you cannot sue them for bringing a claim that has some validity to it (and the courts are generally pretty open on this). You are going to have to show that you were not trying to capitalize on their goodwill (established usage) and this is going to be a lot harder with 160 domains rather than one. I have spent A LOT of money on trademark infringement litigation and been on both sides. Spending some money to get the opinion of a good attorney who specializes in this area can save you a lot of money in the long run. Good luck.
You will have to find out if "athome" is [or not] a registered Trademark. There are specific laws in every country which limits others' rights regarding to a similar Trademark which, theoretically, could produce confusion. I would recommand you to work with a lawyer who is specialist in Trademark problems. I had a similar [not identical!] problem here, in Romania, and my lawyer's help solved the problem. Don't give up! Zoltan
I have never given a domain up, i have yet to be served with a cease and desist order that meant anything much in a legal sense. I am suprised you gave up your domains so easily. If they wanted it so badly they should have registered it. Neil
You can't trademark "Internet" - it's a genericized term. Trademarks protect the FIRST person who uses the term, in that particular manner. You can't trademark "Apple Pie" for a baked goods product, but you could for a line of t-shirts (assuming it hadn't been used by someone else).
That's a common misconception. A trademark owner has absolutely no obligation to register every TLD or combination of a domain just to protect it. Think about it, you could have millions of domains just for "google*******.***" or any other trademark. A trademark owner has the rights to a name that is similar in use, or could confuse the consumer. It's up to them what they want to do with it. Let's face it, most infringement doesn't happen by chance. Someone sees a name like "google" and tries to ride the coattails of their goodwill when they register "googletv.com" or whatever. They are trying to profit off of someone elses success. That's what a trademark protects - any use of the name. You can't just add words to a trademark. Try registering "ConsumerReportsDishwashers" etc and see how long it takes before you hear from their attorney - and they are a company that does take action. IBM and Microsoft are also very aggressive. How you use a domain also plays a key role in infringement. Take Madonna.com. The singer doesn't own the exclusive rights to the name and had the original owner not put content about the singer on the site, he wouldn't have lost the domain and something like a million in legal fees fighting an infringement suit. He was trying to profit by using the singers name and now the singer owns a very valuable domain as the former owner was forced to give it to her. You don't have to like or agree with the law, but its foolish not to understand it as a company can come after you for monetary damages and attorney fees.