Trademark dispute

I recently received a letter from a company which claims my .mobi domain is infringing their trademark. At present the domain is not in use and there is a holding page in place. Should I keep the domain regardless and risk legal action? Offer to sell the domain? Or just hand it over?

 

How can anyone other than yourself answer that question? None of us here know anything about you. What do you want to do?

 

Okay, a better question would be: what is my legal standpoint?

If it were .co.uk I would be tempted to suggest the person accusing me give me £500 and I would sell it, since Nominet charge £750 to handle disputes.

 

It depends on the name and your motivations for registering it.

If it was a .co.uk and someone accused me of cybersquatting I would defend it, not take 500 quid for it.

 

You could suggest that, but then so could any visiting lawyer looking for bad registration practice and advice, especially if they were digging for information on how registrants deal with TM issues.

Personally, I would want to make sure that they actually owned the trademark they are claiming and they weren't just sending a "My legal budget is bigger than yours" letter, as many seem to do.

 

I'm pretty sure they own the trademark. (Although I was unaware that such a thing was a trademark at the time).

There legal budget is somewhat larger than mine! (Unsurprisingly)

I'm pretty sure the legal documents do actually come from the said trademark holder. (I was advised to check this by a friend, it may be worth giving them a call to check)

 

How is the name being used?

Polo.co.uk could be for the game, mint with a hole or a small VW style car, or the Polo family's domain name.

 

As of present the domain isn't being used - I haven't gotten around to using it. My host currently has a holding page (which I receive no revenue from).

 

Does the holding page contain adverts, or anything that could be seen as trade / passing off of the TM owner?

 

No. Just my hosts logo (which is completely unrelated to the trademark).

EDIT: I should say, it has trade, but not anything that could be considered as trading off the TM owner.

 

Without knowing the domain and specifics it is not possible to comment further, but based on the above logically it ought to be defensible.

Dig out the mobi dispute policy and have a good read

 

Hi,

More details needed really.

I've had trouble with a few large firms with unlimited legal budgets, one rhyming with psycholoft and the other a black horse bank - some domains are worth defending and others are worth letting go.

Are they claiming that you are "passing off", or they simply want the name to add to their portfolio because they think it should be theirs? Is it a blatant typo etc?

Need more info.

Newb.