Hi All,
Newbie here and have been reading with interest the threads in
this section and wondered as you're more knowledgable in this
area whether you could offer some advice on some issues i'm
having:
Ok I have a few domains and bought one of them about two years
ago - .com & .co.uk. Since that time I have been running a site that's
not been setting the world alight but brings in a small amount
a month.
This weekend I received a C & D notice from a large law firm claiming
breach of trademark, passing off, domain registered in bad faith etc.
amongst other things.
Their clients are a large firm and they have given me 14 days to
comply i.e. hand over the domains, change the name and sign a lengthy
undertaking that I will not breach their trademark or try to pass my site
off as part of theirs. (If I accept they will not take it further)
Now I have never tried to pass anything off, my logo is nothing like theirs,
the site's not like theirs, their registered trademark consists of two generic
terms and mine adds another term so as an example:
Theirs:
gunuser .com
Mine:
auctiongunuser .com
They allow people to offer things for sale and mine pulls sales content in
from a different site - but granted it's in the same field.
I can understand issues on a made up name say ebay for example but gun
& user I would have thought would have been very generic so thought I was
ok. Anyway my assumption was wrong I take it and I certainly don't have
the fighting funds that this company has and reading more about this I
would probably lose anyway.
So I guess I am going to have to hand over the domains & comply etc.
My question is this though - I want to keep my site running and will change
the name - do you think there would be issues if I changed it for example
to auctionpistoluser.com i.e. they don't have "pistol" as a registered
trademark. Again the above names are just examples.
Any thoughts / advice would be appreciated.
Thanks
Steve
Newbie here and have been reading with interest the threads in
this section and wondered as you're more knowledgable in this
area whether you could offer some advice on some issues i'm
having:
Ok I have a few domains and bought one of them about two years
ago - .com & .co.uk. Since that time I have been running a site that's
not been setting the world alight but brings in a small amount
a month.
This weekend I received a C & D notice from a large law firm claiming
breach of trademark, passing off, domain registered in bad faith etc.
amongst other things.
Their clients are a large firm and they have given me 14 days to
comply i.e. hand over the domains, change the name and sign a lengthy
undertaking that I will not breach their trademark or try to pass my site
off as part of theirs. (If I accept they will not take it further)
Now I have never tried to pass anything off, my logo is nothing like theirs,
the site's not like theirs, their registered trademark consists of two generic
terms and mine adds another term so as an example:
Theirs:
gunuser .com
Mine:
auctiongunuser .com
They allow people to offer things for sale and mine pulls sales content in
from a different site - but granted it's in the same field.
I can understand issues on a made up name say ebay for example but gun
& user I would have thought would have been very generic so thought I was
ok. Anyway my assumption was wrong I take it and I certainly don't have
the fighting funds that this company has and reading more about this I
would probably lose anyway.
So I guess I am going to have to hand over the domains & comply etc.
My question is this though - I want to keep my site running and will change
the name - do you think there would be issues if I changed it for example
to auctionpistoluser.com i.e. they don't have "pistol" as a registered
trademark. Again the above names are just examples.
Any thoughts / advice would be appreciated.
Thanks
Steve