Threat of legal action!

stilltheone

Haha...they are funny. They are just trying to scare you. It's just a matter of how much. They will try low and of course you go for high. Never accept their first offer.

cit_k

Lets get this straight, you knowingly bought domains names that breached trademarks, used them for a decade or so correct?

You have checked, and the trademarks are/were valid for the times in question?

You had use of those domains for previous years, so why try to include compensation for those previous years when you have already been using them?

If you respect law, then I would suggest just charging them what you are charged for the transfer, and the remaining time lost for the current registration.

If you dont, then try to blackmail them for as much as you want, so they can get control of a domain that is infringing their trademark.

texranger

cit_k wrote: »

Lets get this straight, you knowingly bought domains names that breached trademarks, used them for a decade or so correct?

You have checked, and the trademarks are/were valid for the times in question?

You had use of those domains for previous years, so why try to include compensation for those previous years when you have already been using them?

If you respect law, then I would suggest just charging them what you are charged for the transfer, and the remaining time lost for the current registration.

If you dont, then try to blackmail them for as much as you want, so they can get control of a domain that is infringing their trademark.

a domain does not infringe trademark.

when i first started i registered the domain the-ink-shop.co.uk (no longer use) and this is what i had on the website as the logo.

i had an email one day from a printing firm saying i was breaching their trademark as their business was called The Ink Shop and they had this TM. this just happened to arrive the day before i had a meeting with my solicitor, who also has a partner who deals with RM and TM, he looked at it and then looked at both sites and laughed as both sites sellign different services, also as i was using the domain name as the business name then no TM was breached, it would have been different if i had used the name The Ink Shop. it was strnage that as soon as my solicitor wrote to them pointing this out i never heasrd back from them.

fwor

texranger wrote: »

when i first started i registered the domain the-ink-shop.co.uk

Good points, but yours was something of a special case, in that it contained only words that are in common use in their own right. If the OP has registered names that do not contain commonly used words the situation will be different.

As to the advice to ask for £5000: You need to do more research before jumping in with a proposal like that. If it really is true that raising a dispute via ICANN will cost the equivalent of $1500, they may conclude that you won't settle for less than a quarter of your initial bid, and simply raise the dispute - which you will (probably) lose.

sillygoose

My understanding is if you had merely registered the domain but never used it you had little chance of retaining it if a company could prove it would be expected to belong to them.

If however you had an established use of it that didn't mislead from what people would expect to find then you should be suitable compensated - if you owned for example walls.co.uk and were using it for your building business then thats ok, if you were selling sausages it would be a different case and may have to concede.

flappy_mcwarbucks

This happened to me, and i basically told them to get stuffed.

As long as you are not using the domain for anything at all then you can tell them to get stuffed. Only if you use the domain for anything that even remotely resembles the companies activities could they then sue you for passing off. They then tried to go down the intelectual property route, and i told them they would have to prove i have profited from said domains. They then shut up.

I'd send a reply asking for a super huge amount of money for the transfer of the domains. If you're gonna sell them, at least push the envelope and see how much they're willing to pay for it.

freemind

Wasn't there a case where Skye Bay lost their right to the domain because when put together it read the last four letters of a trademark name?

Personally - I would consult a solicitor rather than asking for hearsay advice ...

Just my tuppence worth

Enterprise_1701C

It occurs to me that if they were around at the time you bought the domains, maybe they should have gone through and bought all the relevant domains before anyone else, that is what we have done for our company, saves any malicious redirects or the suchlike!

billywhizz

Some info here, albeit a tad American

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybersquatting

Anubis_2

I will only say this once, no one can force you to sell a domain name. The company is using scare tactics. If you sell, make sure you get the prce you want, because once registered to someone else you have no hope of getting it back.

Flappy is correct, although you an use the domain name as long as it does not infringe copyright laws.