newbie

Hi,

I just received a nasty letter from lawyers acting on behalf of Microsoft.

I have some domain names that are typos of their trademark "hotmail".

Should I just hand the domains over? They are threatening to charge me for using their TM fraudulently! The domains are parked with namedrive at present and show up a search for "mortgages" as the keyword hotmail didn't produce anything useful!

They have sent me an agreement to sign that says I will hand the domain names over and pay their legal fees and if I do not agree they will take me to the high court for fraud.

Nominet is not mentioned anywhere in the document. The domain names are all .co.uk domains.

Your opinions on the matter will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

NB.

elkanet

I would assume what they REALLY want is for you to hand over the domains. Paying the legal fees threat is just a way of showing their financial clout and power to test your resolve. Lets face it Microsoft are going to come out the winner whatever the result. Just hand them the domains and move on before it gets messy.

newbie

The problem is that they have not said what their legal fees are so I am reluctant to sign anything at the moment agreeing to pay them. I would hand the domains over for free but they seem to want cash too!

Alien

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elkanet

Let me tell you something... A few years back I owned a variation of a TM .com. The company in question was a multi-million pound organisation. One day I got a rather nasty letter from their lawyers (prob. similar to the one you have), saying the domain name was a pass off of their clients business. They had printouts of my website source code, links and whois records. They obviously wanted the domain name back plus a payment for legal fees. Guess what...no mention of cost for legal fee's in the letter.

I took the site offline immediatley. Then I wrote to the lawyers, stating the website had been taken offline and I await further instructions. No reply.

newbie

They have succeeded in scaring me!

Oh, they have also asked for full details of the revenue earned from Namedrive on these domains as they wish me to pay it to them together with their legal fees.

This doesn't sound right to me, when does a DRS come into it? From what i've read here a DRS would just hand the domains over to them if they lost...?

eetc

If it were me, I'd just delete the domains and tell them that they have been deleted. They'll pick them up and thats probably the end of it. They have bigger fish to fry.

I would be afraid of entering in to a discussion about their legal fees as I wouldn't want to say something inadvertantly that compromised me. Just let them have the domains and then speak to a solicitor if they pursue you.

Good luck.

eetc

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elkanet

Thats prob. the best thing to do...

keys

This is an increasingly important website for checking likely issues with .uk domains,

http://www.patent.gov.uk

turnic

Hello Newbie,

First of all do not sign anything! Second, ask them which TAG they want the domain to be trasferred into and which DNS they want. Then do the necessary changes by yourself or by your TAG-holder.

Third, if the registrant name is your first and surname prepare papers and send them to their address for registrant change. If not, ie something like not-dedectible easly, pass third step.

TurNIC

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