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- Nov 4, 2002
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Hi folks,
I'd really appreciate some advice about my first run-in with a C&D.
I own cornerkicks.com. It gets about 1,000 type-ins a year; not a huge amount, but enough to be interesting to a soccer business.
A whois search showed that the owner of cornerkick.com [singular] is Corner Kick International, which runs soccer camps for kids. I wrote and offered them my domain for a very reasonable (three-figure) price -- less than it costs one kid to attend their camp.
After the company president had put me off for a while with promises to consider it, he had his web guy call me and threaten a C&D. They have (so they claim) a trademark on "corner kick" that covers any online usage.
That sounded unlikely to me, since it's such a generic term. I searched at www.uspto.gov and found a variety of trademarks related to "corner kick". Here are excerpts of the one I think they're talking about:
***
Word Mark: CORNER KICK
Goods and Services: (ABANDONED) IC 035. US 100 101 102. G & S: Internet website and other multimedia advertisements offering the business goods and services. FIRST USE: 19970501. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19970501
***
First of all, it's "abandoned", so I doubt it's still in force (but maybe they could renew it). Second, I'm ignorant about trademarks, so I don't know if this trademark applies only to the graphic displayed in that listing or if it truly applies to the words too (I don't know the precise meaning of the term "word mark").
They can't really grab this domain from me, can they? (And does it matter whether I am using this domain for commerce? Right now, it just has soccer links. I'd rather keep it for noncommercial use than have it go to these guys, but even better, I'd rather sell it to some other soccer company!)
Thanks in advance for any advice!
I'd really appreciate some advice about my first run-in with a C&D.
I own cornerkicks.com. It gets about 1,000 type-ins a year; not a huge amount, but enough to be interesting to a soccer business.
A whois search showed that the owner of cornerkick.com [singular] is Corner Kick International, which runs soccer camps for kids. I wrote and offered them my domain for a very reasonable (three-figure) price -- less than it costs one kid to attend their camp.
After the company president had put me off for a while with promises to consider it, he had his web guy call me and threaten a C&D. They have (so they claim) a trademark on "corner kick" that covers any online usage.
That sounded unlikely to me, since it's such a generic term. I searched at www.uspto.gov and found a variety of trademarks related to "corner kick". Here are excerpts of the one I think they're talking about:
***
Word Mark: CORNER KICK
Goods and Services: (ABANDONED) IC 035. US 100 101 102. G & S: Internet website and other multimedia advertisements offering the business goods and services. FIRST USE: 19970501. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19970501
***
First of all, it's "abandoned", so I doubt it's still in force (but maybe they could renew it). Second, I'm ignorant about trademarks, so I don't know if this trademark applies only to the graphic displayed in that listing or if it truly applies to the words too (I don't know the precise meaning of the term "word mark").
They can't really grab this domain from me, can they? (And does it matter whether I am using this domain for commerce? Right now, it just has soccer links. I'd rather keep it for noncommercial use than have it go to these guys, but even better, I'd rather sell it to some other soccer company!)
Thanks in advance for any advice!