You might try posting the real data, instead of fictitious data (see below).
If deciding domain disputes was as simple a matter as comparing the domain registration date to a set of dates in a trademark registration record, then UDRP opinions would not be several pages long.
Whether or not there is a "problem" is not a function of these dates, all of which may or may not be meaningful in your situation.
I am not using in bad faith, just a coming soon page now.
Okay, let's keep that quote in mind and break this thing down....
1. First Element - Identity or Similarity With a Trademark?
Yes or no? You seem to indicate that it is.
2. Legitimate Rights or Interests in the Domain Name.
Well, let's see... you registered the domain name in 2002, and you say that now, four years later, it is a "coming soon" page. That would not indicate use of the domain name for a bona fide commercial purpose, or substantial preparations to use the domain name.
3. Registration and Use In Bad Faith
Okay, now here is where nobody - nobody - can crawl into your mind and know, for sure, what you were thinking and registered the domain name. So, in order to figure out why you registered the domain name, there might be a number of other things a panel might consider. But, remember, out of three possible points, you are already down two.
This is a 1A application - i.e. an application based on prior use of the term as a trademark - so you left out one of the most important dates, the date of first use. Was it a long time ago? I could be using a trademark for decades, and it could be very famous and well-known, but I might have only thought to register it as a trademark a few years ago. The dates of various steps of the application, while they may be important in various contexts, don't really matter as much as things like:
- is the trademark inherently distinctive? In other words, is it a made up term like, for example, "XEROX" or "PANASONIC" or "VERIZON" which have no meaning in any language on the planet other than as a reference to the products for which they are known,
- what other domain names do you have? Do you have a lot of common words, phrases, and expressions, or do you have a lot of clearly problematic domain names,
Factors like these are going to mean a
lot more than a set of dates in a trademark registration record.
That said, there is something extremely peculiar about the date sequence you posted. If the application was filed on a 1A basis, and published for opposition in August 2002, then in the normal course of events, it would have registered at around December 2002. But this application didn't register until nearly two years after it was published for opposition.
This indicates one of two things:
First, that there was an opposition proceeding. Given that another party opposed the registration, unsuccessfully, there is likely a wealth of material pertaining to that proceeding that could shed important light on the strength of the mark.
Second, and more accurately, you made these dates up. The reason I conclude that is because the date fields are searchable. There was no application filed on that date which issued on that date.
In fact, the search (20000123)[FD] shows that there were 56 applications filed on January 23, 2000.
Most importantly, there is no reason to conduct a search for trademarks registered on July 8, 2004, because that was a Thursday.
The registration date of a US Trademark, folks, will only fall on a Tuesday. Trademark registrations are issued in weekly batches, and all of the registration dates are Tuesdays (even if that Tuesday is a holiday).
