Received a C & D

[JonR]

Via Certified Mail and Electronic Mail

The registration of the Website “mywebsite.com” and your use of it for profit violates not only the traditional provisions of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1051 et seq. (2005) as well as various State common law remedies, but significantly, your conduct also violates the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1125(d). Each of these two Federal statutes allows an aggrieved party such as "Company" to file a lawsuit and to unquestionably recover:

(1.) The defendant’s immediate forfeiture and abandonment of the domain name, and
(2.) The aggrieved party’s actual damages, which will include the recovery of all of your profits.

Additionally, "Company" will request, and a Court at its discretion may award, a trebling of "Company" actual damages as well as its attorneys’ fees upon a finding that the Defendant has acted willfully. Moreover, and most notably, the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act allows "Company" to elect a recovery of statutory damages of up to $100,000 at anytime before judgment.

To avoid litigation, we expect that you will immediately abandon and dismantle the domain name “mywebsite.com”. Your failure to do so and your continued use of the website will constitute the necessary evidence of willful conduct so as to justify an award of treble damages and attorneys’ fees in any subsequent litigation between us.

My website is an informational based website. Basically, it is a website that discusses a product and the various styles of the product along with information on how to use the product (all of which are made by "company").

I run google adsense on the website, which is the profit they are referring to. I do not sell the products on my website, nor do I specify where one could buy the products (though the adsense ads are usually from places selling the product).

I do not wish to take this on myself, and I would appreciate it if I could get some advice on what I should do, and if there are any quality internet lawyers that could assist me in this (for pay). I have looked through my yellow pages, but I did not see any lawyers that seemed to specificy in domain names nor websites.

 

[Dave Zan]

Nice letter. But it doesn't reference any trademark whatsoever.

But if you really need to retain an attorney, take your pick:

John Berryhill (www.ddhs.com)
Ari Goldberger (www.esqwire.com)
Howard Neu (www.neulaw.com)
Steve Lieberman (www.aplegal.com)
Enrico Schaefer (www.traverselegal.com)

 

[Zoobar]

I don't see a trademark.

 

[JonR]

Nice letter. But it doesn't reference any trademark whatsoever.

But if you really need to retain an attorney, take your pick:

John Berryhill (www.ddhs.com)
Ari Goldberger (www.esqwire.com)
Howard Neu (www.neulaw.com)
Steve Lieberman (www.aplegal.com)
Enrico Schaefer (www.traverselegal.com)

The companies name is trademarked. The product in question is that of "$Company _____" So the product has the company name in it, and is identified by such. A good example of this would be with panasonic. You can think of my site as a site that shows the differences between the various panasonic phones and ways to operate them.

I pulled up the uspto link on the company name and I saw this...

Transformed into a National Application: No

Is that of any help to me?

Thank you for the list of attorneys. I contacted John Berryhill yesterday (via email), and I have seen him active on the forums since then, so I appreciate knowing I have some quality alternatives.

 

[Zoobar]

PM sent.