Disputes with .com domains

[Woodhouse]

Hi there

I wonder if anyone can help.

I have a business which has been trading since 2002 and the name is a registered trademark in the UK.

The .com domain has always been owned by a company in the US. They are some sort of firm that enable people to buy domains on mass to resell.

I have just noted that the .com domain is now being used by a sort of shopping portal and they acquired it in 2003. They are not selling any goods just linking to various sites.

I understand that I have to go through ICANN for .com disputes but I cannot understand the complaints procedure

Can anyone provide any information how how you go about logging a complaint, or are there companies the the UK who can assist with this?

Thank you for your help in advance.

Woodhouse

 

[domaingenius]

Hi there

I wonder if anyone can help.

I have a business which has been trading since 2002 and the name is a registered trademark in the UK.

The .com domain has always been owned by a company in the US. They are some sort of firm that enable people to buy domains on mass to resell.

I have just noted that the .com domain is now being used by a sort of shopping portal and they acquired it in 2003. They are not selling any goods just linking to various sites.

I understand that I have to go through ICANN for .com disputes but I cannot understand the complaints procedure

Can anyone provide any information how how you go about logging a complaint, or are there companies the the UK who can assist with this?

Thank you for your help in advance.

Woodhouse

If you have a legitimate claim that is legally enforceable then I would make an approach to the owner firstly and see if they will sell and how much they want. THEN look further depending on the answer you get.

DG

 

[Woodhouse]

Thanks for your reply.

I will try that.

Thank you

 

[Jeewhizz]

The UDRP process is quite expensive. You will need a Stateside Lawyer to handle it for you iirc. http://www.icann.org/udrp/udrp.htm

Jee

 

[texidriver]

Welcome Woodhouse

FYI

http://arbiter.wipo.int/center/faq/domains.html#15

 

[Woodhouse]

Thanks for that

There is just so much information to digest

 

[netserve]

Sorry, but I don't think you've had good advice so far on this thread.

You need to prove 3 things to get the domain. Rights to the domain eg TM, use and registration in bad faith, and the current owner has no legitimate right to the domain.

If you approach the owner and ask how much then want then you've made the first move. Their response is then less of a bad faith issue because you asked for a price. Bad faith would be them making an out of the blue offer to sell to you. You could contact them and point out that you are a TM holder and that any use in a related field would be breach of TM but then that tends to put them on alert.

WIPO/UDRP will cost you $1500, and if you've got a good brain you can get a lot of information and template complaint forms to hand it yourself. I'm sure there will be guys on here that could offer assistance for £ or free if you really needed.

From what you say you have TM rights, the current owner doesn't appear to have any rights to the domain so all that is left is bad faith. It would be worth while reading section 4 here http://www.icann.org/udrp/udrp-policy-24oct99.htm before you make any contact so that you can give them a helping hand to shoot themselves in the foot with their response.