Web Domain - Legal Advice

jozvaldo

Could I please have some help from the experienced ones of you out there. I have just received the following email relating to a domain that I own:-
"We are an international Group manufacturing and selling confectionery products all around the world. In 2006 we acquired the Spanish company ********. Now ******* is one of our most famous and successful brands protected all over the world by trademark registrations (any proof will be submitted if requested). We also registered, among others, the domain names ********.COM to promote our products. We have come to know that you have registered the domain name ********.COM which infringes our rights in the trademark ********, which we fully own now. Due to the near identity of our trademark and your domain name there is a high risk for consumers - who want to search on the Internet for our ******* products - to believe that there is a connection between the web page displayed under your domain name and our products and Company. Therefore, to solve the matter in bonis we ask you to transfer your a.m. domain name to us Perfetti Van Melle S.p.A., owner of the mark *******. Thanking you in advance for your attention, I look forward to hearing from you in the near future on the above."

Are they legally entitled for me to transfer to them for free or can they purchase it from me???
Many thanks in advance

Browntoa

are we talking something like

moneysavingexpert.com

and you own

moneysavingexperts.com ??

is the other site a well know brand ??

John_Gray

To add to Browntoa's questions:

• When did you register your domain?
• Do you use your domain's associated website for anything useful, or is it just 'parked' with almost zero content?
• For what reason would you want to keep the domain?

If you really, really, want to keep it you could go to arbitration.

magpiecottage

If they registered the domain name then I cannot see how you could have done so as well. It would simply show up as unavailable when you tried.

So either they did not register it or they let it lapse.

Figment

magpiecottage wrote: »

If they registered the domain name then I cannot see how you could have done so as well. It would simply show up as unavailable when you tried.

So either they did not register it or they let it lapse.

I believe they are claiming he has a domain that is almost identical to theirs.

amcluesent

Are they legally entitled for me to transfer to them for free or can they purchase it from me???

If you're using the domain for vexatious purposes, e.g. 'Ihatexyz.com', or you're shown to be passing-off a product to hoodwink buyers or 'cybersquatting' to make a quick buck then the .com domain can be taken from you.

If your domain name and trademark are for completely different products\services, then you can push back.

The dispute resolution policy is here - http://www.icann.org/en/help/dndr/udrp/policy

zappahey

Some variation on Chupa Chups, at a guess

jozvaldo

I purchased chuppachups.com around 6 months ago for use as a price comparison site - nothing to do with confectionery???

peteb23

I'm not a lawyer - but I think you would be hard pushed to defend chuppachups.com vs chupachups.com .

If they want to take it WIPO then I think they will need to pay fees of around $1500. They may just leave it and only take action if you put anything on the domain - but in the end what's the point of keeping hold of it if you can never use it.

You have to expect this kind of thing when you're registering typos of well known brands - but I'm guessing that since you also post on a black hat forum that you know this already

System

jozvaldo wrote: »

I purchased chuppachups.com around 6 months ago for use as a price comparison site - nothing to do with confectionery???

Pull the other one! What sort of association is there between a comparison type site and the name 'chuppachups'.

Definite cybersquatting.

paddyrg

Cybersquat in my opinion too - however you can offer them the site with a humble feigned innocense and a suggested inconvenience fee of maybe £150.