Trademark issue (apparently)

Hi everyone ..

Well, I have a french website (under a .com domain) .. That was up for couple years now and doing fine ...

Today, I received an email from the contact form of the website, from a guy just saying to contact him (and left a phone number) about a trademark issue, saying that the name I'm using as it is, was a trademark registered by him 5 years ago ...

Domani example is www.MyDomain.com , and the guy is saying that "My Domain" is a trademark he registered ...

Is this an issue ? or can I just ignore him ?
I have very limited knowledge about legal stuff, but I guess if someone registers a trademark or a company it's for a specefic country (is that accurate?)
The guy is probably located either in France or Canada (so his trademark is there), and I'm not in any of these countries ...

Also it's weird since it's a .com domain ...

Anyway, I have no idea about what I'm talking about here, so if anyone can enlighten me.
Thank you

 

I think it would be best to get in touch with an attorney about this.

 

Having a "registered" trademark is different from having a "trademark", at least here in the U.S. If someone has a registered trademark, the government has assigned that trademark to the company that got it registered. It usually wins in court. Simply having a "trademark" means that you have put a "TM" after the name that you are claiming a trademark on. The date of the first time you have used a "TM" with that name can be used in court to show that you had it first and that is probably why the fellow mentioned how long his trademarking goes back.

There are many factors that go into what is a trademark and who has it and it almost always comes down to a court case if both parties are intent on keeping it. The fact that this person is trademarked in one country, by the way, may not have any relevance in your country. But, as I said before, it always comes down to a court case and the side with the deepest wallet often wins by attrition.

It would be worthwhile to find out a bit more about his supposed trademark (he could be a scammer/speculator) with some research and then possibly have a brief conversation with an attorney to see about the laws in your country regarding this situation.

 

I don't wanna get in touch with him, at least for now ..
See if he takes another step ...

But I looked in here
http://bases-marques.inpi.fr/
which is a french database for dposited trademarks in France, and I found the name actually deposited by a specefic company, with a number and trademark class and it says status : marque renouvelee - means renewed brand

Which, at the end of the day really sucks if they can really get the domain from me .. because I don't relly care about the specefic name, but now that I invested in the website for a while, it's important to me ... I mean is it that difficult to register a damn .com when registering your trademark ? seriously ?

 

It generally depends on whether or not you're active in the country they're operating in (and have the trademark in) - if they're not active in the US (since it's a .com-domain), and if YOU are registered in the US (or anywhere else the company is not active), you have a good case. However - it's got nothing to do with where the DOMAIN is registered - it has to do with where YOU (the owner) is registered - if you're French, or have a French business, then those laws apply, regardless of where you've registered your domain. (You're the legal entity).