business name been abused

easyhost

Hi All

for a few years now i have been trading with a under my business tophosting UK, but only as an online business.

their was another business of the same name using the domain tophostinguk.com or which i had no problems as we helped each other out with advice etc.
in dec last year he sold his business and website to a person i would describe as an inmature child or scammer as these links shows

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1015692
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1022292

along with many other forum and review sites.

so i took the step to register my business name as a ltd company and when i informed the new owners of tophostinguk.com is reply was

hi d**k***d
tell terry to sue us if he wants to try ..... f*** off

is their anything i can do in order to stop him using my business name is such a fraudulent manner

patman99

Now you are a Limited company, you could put-in a claim on the name with nominet. However, if the new owner is American then they will automatically come-down in his favour.

Just make sure you make use of social media to promote your business whilst at the same time making it quite clear you are not linked to this other outfit (you do have a Facebook page and twitter account for your company don't you?).

easyhost

patman99 wrote: »

Now you are a Limited company, you could put-in a claim on the name with nominet. However, if the new owner is American then they will automatically come-down in his favour.

Just make sure you make use of social media to promote your business whilst at the same time making it quite clear you are not linked to this other outfit (you do have a Facebook page and twitter account for your company don't you?).

the new owner is from rochdale, UK

his .com domain is registered through NEO and they told me to do one when i told them that i now have the name registered as a ltd company so this so called owner has no rights to use it without my permission

paddyrg

Speak with ICANN who manage the .com gTLD

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Domain-Name_Dispute-Resolution_Policy

The above link gives details of the policy of recovering the .com domain from your aggressor. It should be simple to demonstrate that you have more rights to the name and that he is acting in bad faith.

easyhost

paddyrg wrote: »

Speak with ICANN who manage the .com gTLD

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Domain-Name_Dispute-Resolution_Policy

The above link gives details of the policy of recovering the .com domain from your aggressor. It should be simple to demonstrate that you have more rights to the name and that he is acting in bad faith.

the below is quoted from the link

The costs to hire a UDRP provider to handle a complaint often start around $1000 to $2000.

Horace

Maybe you need to chat with an intellectual property lawyer?

You can find out more about registering a trade mark etc on https://www.ipo.gov.uk - this may point you in the right direction.

paddyrg

easyhost wrote: »

the below is quoted from the link

Yep - well would you expect your lawyers to work for free?

$1000 is £600-ish, is the damage to your business worth spending £600-£1200ish to stop? As the alternative would be just whining about it, it seems like a deal.