Legal Advice Needed Please...

[EastWave.com]

Just wanted an opinion on this one,

I work for an online retailer who sells various toys, party supplies etc. We have numerous websites which we sell products on, many of them have names like TOYLINE+TOYS.com (for instance spidermantoys.com, not one of our names but you get the picture).

We registered a domain name a few months back for a new toy line (The Doodlebops). The name we registered was www.thedoodlebops.com. Our supplier will not have any products for us to sell until early 2006, so we just set up a one page site with google adsense. We received a C&D letter this week from the company that owns the trademark to Doodlebops. The company is based out of Canada and have had a trademark on the term Doodlebops since 2004.

Here is where it gets tricky, the company did not register the domain doodlebops.com until 05-May-2005.... We registered thedoodlebops.com on 13-Apr-05. The company did not file for a trademark on the term The Doodlebops until August of 2005.

We have taken the site down this morning just to be safe, but should we go ahead and turn the name over or try to hold onto it? This is our first C&D letter and are unsure what to do. Other names that we have, we have been contacted to remove content from sites, and the companies didn't seem to have a problem with our choice of domain names.

 

[GeorgeK]

They have a Canadian trademark registration pending, before your domain:

http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/SSG/1220/trdp122086300e.html

Also, the NSI "Creation Date" in the WHOIS is often incorrect (can change based on a transfer from another registrar, for example).

If you check the WHOIS at Internic.net, which is authoritative,

http://reports.internic.net/cgi/whois?whois_nic=doodlebops.com&type=domain

it was created on February 5, 2004:

Domain Name: DOODLEBOPS.COM
Registrar: NETWORK SOLUTIONS, LLC.
Whois Server: whois.networksolutions.com
Referral URL: http://www.networksolutions.com
Name Server: NS1.THECOOKIEJARCOMPANY.COM
Name Server: NS2.THECOOKIEJARCOMPANY.COM
Status: REGISTRAR-LOCK
Updated Date: 05-may-2005
Creation Date: 05-feb-2004
Expiration Date: 05-feb-2011

Given the strength of their rights, this is not worth fighting over, in my opinion.

 

[EastWave.com]

Thanks for the reply George, that is pretty much what we figured... This was one of the domains that I was skeptical of when my boss gave me a list of new ones to register.

Just wanted a 2nd opinion on it.

 

[Theo]

Off-topic: what a silly name for a toy.

 

[GeorgeK]

Well, it's for little kids, so perhaps "silly" is good? arty:

http://www.cbc.ca/parents/doodlebops.html

It reminded me of the "Googles" which have a TM dispute with Google:

http://www.googles.com/

 

[Theo]

Snickerdoodle will sue!

 

[Dale Hubbard]

Off-topic: what a silly name for a toy.

Please show a reasonable level of respect in 'legal' forums. Off-topic interspersing is particularly demeaning.

 

[EastWave.com]

I agree that its a silly name, a silly toy line and everything... But its getting quite popular since being added as a show to The Playhouse Disney lineup. Same as The Wiggles, extremely annoying but the little kids just eat it up.