Hi, I just registered an expired domain which belonged to a huge corporation. I checked the trademark website before doing this and there is no trademark on the domain name if taken as a whole (ex: abcde.com abcde is not a trademark) but there are tons of trademarks on a couple of sub-strings such as "ab" or "bcde" which are part of the domain from different corporations if you can believe it. What to do? It is a short name with xx,xxx links in Google most with good PR. Can I park it and get my registration money back? I know for sure that if they ask for it back I will give it to them but would they pay for the registration fee? What to do with it? Should I just forget about it, take my losses and run? Please help! I never registered an expired domain before and I really did not expect to get this one. I just tried to get it to see what my chances are to get such a domain. I will very much appreciate any input. Thank you, NineFingers
If it trully is a trademark violation you may wish to try to unload it but that alone can cause you problems. It also depends is the corporation known to send scare letters, go after domains, etc. One idea, if you planned to use the domain to market their product you may beable to get permission from them, I have a few trademarked domains 'well partials' that I got permission from the company to use for promoting their products.
Thank you for your quick reply Hrblcantra! Here are more details that may help everyone understand the situation. I own two domain names one of which I am developing. I was looking for advice on how to get traffic when I launch it and I stumbled upon these forums. I read some of the posts of OdditySoftware and I thought that maybe an expired domain with decent traffic would cost me less than mainstream advertising. I read some more and had some doubts regarding the practices of the back-ordering registrars. I had to try and see what my chances of getting an expired domain were and so I chose to test SnapNames first. I found about ten domains that were expiring each with a different level of links and domain quality. I did the trademark research for all of them and listed them with SnapNames. They became available for registration and I entered the auction for them. I was particularly interested now to see what a domain name of a certain quality with a certain number of links would go for so I can estimate if this was worth pursuing. Most of them went very high and I still can’t understand why. Here is a made up example: “mambo45chinaxfg.net†with 15 links in MSN mostly from link farms at $130. I thought the system was rigged but still had to find out if it could be profitable so I chose another set of domains some with tons of links and others with only a couple. One of them is like: “ibmxp.com†and has tens of thousands quality incoming links if you use Google. I was sure the auction will go up like crazy but I had to know how much. Today I was absolutely shocked to receive an email from SnapNames stating it is mine for the standard fee of $60. How cruel is that?? Either no one was as stupid as I to register it due to its potential trademark infringements or SnapNames is as good as it gets! Now I spent the $60 and did a quick search for sub-string of the domain in Google. There are literally hundreds of companies that could claim trademark infringement. Using the above example, the following are trademarks: ibm, xp, mpx, ib and so on and so on. At this point I am mostly interested if somehow I can get my registration fee back. I am too chicken to even think of making a profit on this one. I am sure that if I contact them they will snatch it from me immediately. Please tell what of the following I can do (if any) without losing another finger and my house: park it and get some money from PPC, use it redirect traffic to another site, sell it. I think it is out of the question to develop it and use it as an affiliate site. Be kind, help Nine keep his remaining fingers! Thank you, Nine Fingers
Sounds interesting..... If you like PM me the name and maybe I will make you an offer if you want to sell it....
Suggest contacting an attorney if you feel it's that good of a domain name, or possibly trade marking it yourself. Or as the previous poster listed I might even buy it from you.
I did another search for links in Google. It has over 40K links coming from: schools, major tech magazines, the parent company which seems to have move the section of their site from this domain to a folder in their primary domain (can I hope??), major electronics retailers, internationally respected organizations, universities and so on (even Microsoft). It is not indexed by the other search engines directories for some reason. Most of the incoming links have a PR of 4-6 (only checked about 50). I am open to selling it but reluctant to divulge the URL (I hope you can understand that). Since it is a short name there might be some type-in traffic as well but I can't estimate how much. I did a search on overture to see if there are sponsors for the search term and there are but I am not an affiliate and not sure how to check how popular it is. The URL is short. Almost fainted when I received another email from Snap saying that the following domains would be open for re-registration but it was another one (stars.info if you are interested). What is it worth? Please take into consideration the potential problems it can cause due to the possible trademark infringement. Thanks a lot! Nine Fingers
A registered trademark isn't technically any stronger than a used name without a trademark. The person who first used the name, and continues to use the name, owns the right to the name - provided it is a name that is able to be trademarked. Tradename/Service marks are issued to particular categories, so if you is you are using it for something entirely different, and it isn't likely to confuse anyone, you might be ok. i.e. you might be able to use the name "apple" for the name of a t-shirt business, but using it for anything related to computers or music would be an infringement. If you started a company called "Apple t-shirts" and didn't register it as a serivce mark, you would still be the owner of the name and could stop someone from using it in a similar fashion (assuming you were the first person to use it). It isn't enough to just do a trademark/service mark search. Before using a name, you need to see if anyone else has prior usage- and that can be difficult. A person who ran a business out of his house, without even a business phone number, would still own the usage to a name. I own several Federally Registered trademarks and service marks. The benefit is that it establishes the date you started using the name in stone, you are more likely to prevent infringement problems because it's the first place most people search, and you can also recover treble damages in an infringement suit. After about a six year period (5 years after publication) your right to the name becomes "uncontestable" meaning that no one can stop you from using the name even if they can prove usage that pre-dated yours.
Sorry ninefingers but w/o the domain name I can't do any research myself making anything I could offer or estimate on worth non existant.
So if I registered DellCS.com which was used by Dell for their customer service site (which they still have except somewhere else) and I create a company called DellCS which sells shoes I would be ok? Couldn't they force me to release the domain because of their prior usage? I read a little more about this topic and it seems it might be possible but a legal battle is the last thing I want. How about if I simply use the domain for advertising shoes without creating a company? I know that without the URL you can't really estimate its worth but from what I am reading simply posting here your intention to sell would make you liable. How much would it be worth (approximately) if there was no trademark infringement and assuming a bad/long name with no type-in traffic and irrelevant to people that followed the incoming links? I hope this discussion will benefit every user here that plans on registering an expired domain name. Thank you for your replies, Nine
It is not unusual for large companies usually go after broad protection of their trademark/service mark by registering their name in each of the classifications. IBM created a jewelry line - not because they wanted to sell jewelry, but so they could have broad protection against anyone using their name. It would depend on the classification(s) the name is registered in. You also can't just add to a name to escape infringement. Even close or foreign spellings can constitute infringement. Microsoft went after a 15 year old kid whose real name was Mike Rowe after he registered mikerowesoft dot com. I know a lady who was known for years as "Grammy Goose" and got into trouble when she opened a local gift business using that name (by the potato chip company). I'm sure they weren't worried about competition, but they were legally obligated to go after people who infringe upon a trade name or else they risk losing it. The basic test is: Are you trying to use or tread upon the goodwill built by someone else, or is your name likely to confuse the consumer as possibly being associated with the mark/name already in use? Infringement suits are costly and it is best to try and avoid problems by choosing a name that isn't similar to any large company. Even if they don't sue you for damages, you might lose a domain that you spent a lot of time developing. For two or three hundred dollars, you could buy a hour of time with an attorney that specializes in intellectual property rights and get a basic opinion on a particular name.
I decided to create a simple page that will point to DMOZ(edit: chose RedCross.org instead). I will not be making any profit out of this. I did some more reading and I think the worst scenario is they ask me to stop and give them the domain. I will not use the domain in bad faith or to dilute their mark. If I get decent traffic I will pay an attorney to help me but I don't want to spend a couple hundred $ if there is no traffic. What do you think? Thanks Mjewel and Hrblcantra for your advice. I will keep you posted. Nine
You're probably right in that if you don't run adsense or make any money off the domain, they would probably only ask for the domain. The only problem I can see is that they have no time limit to object and would only do so once they discovered it. That could be 1 month, 6 months, or 5 years down the road. Whatever this corporation with the trademark does, I would stay away from having content that is associated in any way with it and you will probably be ok i.e. if they deal with computers, don't use the domain with anything that has something to do with computers. I own trademarks and a service mark on a four letter word, but someone else already had registered the .com by the time I got around to checking. Even though I started the business years before them, and my service mark pre-dates their domain registration, I have no legal right to the domain because they are in a business that has nothing to do with my business- so there is no conflict and thus no infringement. If they sold or changed the focus of their business to the same sector as my business, I could take action against them- but I do not expect them to do it as they operate a multi-million dollar business and are dominate in their particular field.
trademark infringment with the big companies is not even worth you hiring a lawyer, they will bleed you dry even if you have a good case... I would make them work for the domain though and buy it from you. If you dont have a website up, you aren't doing any harm or "bad doing". Good Luck