Bet ya never get a letter like THIS...

JuniperPark · Aug 23, 2003

Thank you for returning my call regarding the **********.com domain name. We've registered the name for the last 2 years and due to an administrative screw up by our previous host, it was not renewed as I learned this morning. I learned that the domain was not renewed this morning only after speaking with the company I thought was hosting it. They did however inform me that it is for sale and directed me to you. I appreciate the opportunity and your graciousness to return the domain. My wife and I recently started a small company out of our house and unfortunately can't afford to pay a lot for the domain. I don't know what you expect as compensation and quite frankly I'm afraid of insulting you because I'm not experienced in this area. So I appreciate your patience (tolerance). I would like to compensate you for the expenses you incurred to register the name as well as any related expenses/pa! ckages currently associated with the domain. Again, I don't have a handle on that cost except from the limited experience I have, but I would like to offer $25.00 for the return of the domain.

I'll look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

-----------------------------------------

I get FAR too many of these for them all to be legit. Most of the time, as in this case, there is NO evidence of prior ownership in any archive, link, or search engine.

What do you guys do?

JoDomains · Aug 23, 2003

I get lot of similar emails. Some of them are from real previous owners who wants you to state a price to get an evidence of bad faith against you. Some of them are from small domain players trying to collect good names with the cheapest prices. Very little of them is from real people trying to get their names back.

In your case, I'm pretty sure that the sender is not a previous owner. Don't forget that after a domain name expires, the registrar put the domain on hold, then it goes for Redemption period of 30 days where THE WEBSITE AND EMAIL IS DOWN. After that another 7 days in PENDINGDELETE status. So this website was down for almost 2 months and the owner didn't notice that???!!!! Highly unture.

If I got this notice, I'll ignore it. But if you want to be in the safe side, you can ask him for a invoice of his hosting company that shows that the website was hosted with thhemfrom this period to this. You can always call the hosting company and verify his info.

Good luck ;-)

JuniperPark · Aug 23, 2003

Thanks for the response, Lwgik - I'm totally with you on this topic.

On this particular name, the guy had called my so I had his number on caller ID, and he has an unusual name. I googled it and found that he's on a number of civic organization, a couple of pages list his email and phone. SO... I assume he is legit, and asked him to PayPal me $100, and suggest he recover than money from the web host that dropped it.

I do like your invoice idea - wish I had thought of that. Perhaps I should make this an automated page on my site... if you're claiming a TM conflict, type the trademark number in this box. No number/no match/not yours? No response

About 1/2 of the trademark claims I get are totally bogus... thankfully the USPTO.gov site busts them easily!

- Dale

JoDomains · Aug 23, 2003

By the way JP, if you read through some threads in the Legal Issues forum, you will see that no one needs a REGISTERED trademark to claim trademark rights. There is something called Common Law Trademark where you can claim trademark rights by using an unregistered trademark and market it. If you want to know more about common law trademark check this page:

http://www.bitlaw.com/trademark/common.html

Here are some cases where people caliming common law trademark were able to get their domain names without owning a registered trademark through USPTO:

1- Cedar Trade Associates, Inc. v Greg Ricks
http://arb-forum.com/domains/decisions/93633.htm

2- Blue Max Technology v Compudigital Industries
http://arb-forum.com/domains/decisions/95107.htm

3- Marcor International v Len Langevin
http://arb-forum.com/domains/decisions/96317.htm

JuniperPark · Aug 23, 2003

Good point about the registration not being required. But what IS required is that they protect the name. Not payng the reg fee or not purchasing the name to begin with is, by definition, a strike against them right up front. Of course the "confusingly similar" thing can be pushed to the absurd, and i always fight those. See yesterday's loss by Fox News on this very topic.