GreyWing

Spot on apart from ignoring them, if you ignore them they can then jusitfy sending you more and more letters at £100 a pop, which they do to make money as well. Always send an acknowledgment letter saying received and under consideration. You can even bill them for your letters, but don't ignore what ever you do.

However they probably won't persue any further, but play the game until you are sure.

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grantw

They will most likely pursue it, they were (probably still are) making examples of people to get the headlines and send a wider message out to everyone, the unlucky ones that get hit are just being used to get the message out.

Grant

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accelerator

My unqualified view is also that the first step is to remove yourself from ownership of the domains. If they have requested transfer of the domains to them, then I guess that is what should be done.

Now purely for the sake of discussion ... if they haven't asked for them to be transferred to them, I wonder what would happen if you just cancelled them. Presumably you would incur their wrath if some other party regged them, but what if no-one then registered them. Would this be an argument for saying "Well, they can't have been that important to you"?

Rgds

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EyeOfTheTiger

just received an email from the lawyers

When we spoke last week, I explained that, if ******** are forced to bring Court proceedings against you for recovery of damages, it would seek to recover its legal costs (which would be significantly higher than they are currently), and additionally would be entitled to elect between recovery of (i) your profits and (ii) damages for trade mark and copyright infringement. The damages sum is likely to be very high, especially given that the Court generally has little sympathy for cybersquatters.

Given your prompt response to our letter, however, I confirm that ******* would be prepared to accept a substantially reduced contribution to its costs and damages, namely the sum of £10,000, if we are able to conclude this dispute quickly and without further cost. Our client is not prepared to accept a payment in instalments - it is not for ******** to provide credit in that manner. However, if you are likely to have difficulties with payment, then you will be aware that you may be able to obtain bank loans which can be repayable over time.

This offer is open until 4pm on 5 May 2009. Our client's costs increase with every email or letter we write, and accordingly, should you reject this offer now our client reserves its rights to seek recovery of the full amount to which it is entitled.

Finally, you are unable to accept this offer and pay the sum sought, let me know. It is possible that I can persuade ******** to let you speak with them directly. However, for the avoidance of doubt, I could only arrange that if you were able demonstrate exceptionally good reasons why you cannot accept the offer, and could let me know what sum you could pay in lieu.

So now what - bend over or fight ? With risk of further costs and damages ...

I simply cant afford this...

Tiger

GreyWing

If you can't afford it, then it doesn't leave you many options, you have to fight it.

You have 2 options, as Grant says contact a solicitor (a domain trademark savy one, not your local get the scroat stealing razor blades from asda off on bail solicitor) and let him advise you.

Or you can ask them the questions that I laid out for you in the previous posts and await their response.

or you can do a mixture of both.

British law does not allow for punitive damages, only losses and costs. By the way is it a .co.uk or a .com?

Are they American solicitors looking to go through an American court because if they are then whatever advice you do get on here is worthless, because £10k might be cheap, very cheap.

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EyeOfTheTiger

They are all .co.uk domains and it is a UK law fimr chasing...

EyeOfTheTiger

Have also just dropped an email to the law firm that Grant suggested to me via PM so big heads up to Grant and all of you for advice and words of wisdom. Will of course let you know the outcome.

Bit of a p*ss*r as Im getting married in July so all my monies going on that

accelerator

I am thinking out loud here, but surely if you immediately transfer the domains, then the costs incurred by them are merely those in employing the lawyers to send you a letter. You could prove very little damage to brand from the very low traffic stats on the domain.

You employing a lawyer is just going to be useful in terms of getting their claim against you reduced, but you have to balance that against your own legal fees.

Like I said ... just thinking aloud.

Rgds

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Skinner

A chap I recently did some business with recently had this with a well known car company, in the end they could only prove a few hours solicitors costs in tracking him down (despite demanding 1000s in fee's and 1000s in damages), sending you a (copied from 100 other cases) letter, and was unable to prove any losses or damages, but the domains had never been parked or anything. In the end he transferred the domain and requested they send him a detailed invoice. They have yet to send the invoice, about 10 days later, but have accepted the transfer. So he's expecting a few hundred quids worth of invoice.

This prompted my recent question about returning TM names

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GreyWing

Don't accept any invoices from those after the first letter when they tried to claim 2k per name.

Those letters are nulled because they didn't incur 2k worth of damages. So by lying in their first letter they have installed a barrier to you settling at that point, and you aren't responsible for any costs past that point.

Only accept an invoice for the initial letter. I would say £200'ish might be fair and reasonable.

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