DL Sale: HPICheck.co.uk (5,459 GBP)

[Acorn Newsbot]

Domain Name Sold at Domain Lore:
Sold price: £5459, Ended on: 2012-01-25 16:30:11

click for details...

 

[JMOT]

Wonder who bought this?? Hopefully they knew about this:

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/domestic?domesticnum=2387858

Ouch if not...

 

[GreyWing]

Google won't even run car data ads on anything that mentions hpi.......

This is heavily TM'd however you can fight them on it. They came after me for hipclear.co.uk and .com years ago. I told them fine go to DRS or court etc, but I'll challenge their tm on grounds of that it is now a generic term. They declined to take it any further.

If you spent 5k on the name, then 5k overturning their TM which is highly probable in my opinion then this name now becomes a 100K name.

Trouble is that there are only two players in the car data market that offer full checks, those two are Experian and Equifax. They have different brands but 95% goes back to those two and they won't rock the boat for each other, nice little cartel they have there.

 

[retired_member32]

I wouldn't touch this with yours Graeme...i wonder if the previous owner had an enquiry from them nice HPI people..

 

[foz]

Congrats to the seller. Risky buy (if not the TM holder).

hpicheck_com

 

[Aaron Clifford]

Massive trademark infringement, there isn't anything else you can use it for. Only hope it was bought on behalf of/by the trademark holder otherwise its a bit of a stinger.

 

[GreyWing]

Massive trademark infringement, there isn't anything else you can use it for. Only hope it was bought on behalf of/by the trademark holder otherwise its a bit of a stinger.

I think you could fairly argue that the term "hpi" is understood by people to be a generic term to describe "hire purchase information" or similar which is what it originally stood for.

I reckon around 2-3 out of 100 would actually link the term to a specific company "hpi".

Other terms that were once trademarked and then cancelled due to them becoming generisized are PC, Asparin, Elastoplast.... There are quite a few big ones that had their TM's cancelled due to their own success.
IMO HPI would never take you to court over it, you risk losing a £5k name, they lose and the gates of hell open up above them.....

 

[Aaron Clifford]

However the company HPI has been operating since 1938, doing "hpi checks" which they refer to as their "HPI Check service", very dodgy grounds IMO.

I don't really know too much about the industry though. I know you Graeme so I'd be inclined to follow your guidance on it!

 

[markb]

I was suprised that there was so many people bidding for a trademarked term, hopefully hpicheck.com where the buyers, we'll find out when the whois updates. I didnt think domainlore accepted trademarked terms.

 

[namealot]

If hpicheck .com were not buying it who would the new owner sell it too?

They or whomever they sell could develop, market it etc (a bigger investment than the name to do so successfully) Only to find the trademark owners sniffing at your heals, especially if you took there market share they’d have nothing to lose???

Aren’t a lot of the trademarks which lost becoming the common name, relevant to product or service etc over in the USA I didn’t think even then it was a particularly big list is it 100 ?? 1000 … has there been that many lost through the UK courts

Through in going up against Experian and Equifax and even hpi to try and grab some of the market… either a genius or fool

 

[wb]

For anyone interested, the list of "protected trademarks frequently used as generic terms" on the link below is far longer than the list of "former trademarks that have become generic terms" (haven't checked how comprehensive this is or how many have had attempts made to quash them, although it does give some examples):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_generic_and_genericized_trademarks

 

[GWM]

What if the buyer wasn't HPI but someone who uses the domain to market only HPI's Services as one of their affilliates driving business directly to them? It can't be trademark infringement if your not competing, surely.

 

[JMOT]

What if the buyer wasn't HPI but someone who uses the domain to market only HPI's Services as one of their affilliates driving business directly to them? It can't be trademark infringement if your not competing, surely.

LOL... ya... it can. In that case you could be causing confusion, be seen to be passing off or whatever creative excuse their lawyer dreams up because you are using their TM for the purpose the TM holder has it registered for even if you were sending traffic to them via their affiliate prog. In fact that might even make it worse for you as you are profiting off their TM. It would probably prove easier for them to nail you that way.

This isnt like using apple.co.uk for design services Vs apple.com OR emirates.co.uk Vs emirates.com

 

[Pred]

What if the buyer wasn't HPI but someone who uses the domain to market only HPI's Services as one of their affilliates driving business directly to them? It can't be trademark infringement if your not competing, surely.

often companies, usually, will make it in their t.o.s for affiliates that you can't use their tm directly in any domain name or sponsored links etc

 

[Pred]

there are however real generic finance domains, cheap here
http://www.acorndomains.co.uk/fixed...budgeting-loans-instant-loans.html#post376605

no tm's apply
although DL may be a better venue

 

[JMOT]

I'm glad it was the TM holder & not an unfortunate affiliate.

Wonder if they'll snaffle the .org.uk on DL too....

 

[GreyWing]

Well for me this states quite clearly that they are scared of losing their TM...

Why else would a company with a clear TM not go to DRS to get this name and instead pay £5.5k? My thoughts on it are that the TM is too clear and restrictive to competitors.

It fits with my experience of dealing with them, we had a big run in with them back in 2004 before I got into domaining and despite all the threats nothing came of it, although they did a good job in blocking my access to information.

 

[JMOT]

if you feel that strongly, buy the .org.uk and challenge it.

 

[foz]

Who was the mad man bidding them up

 

[GreyWing]

if you feel that strongly, buy the .org.uk and challenge it.

Thing is though mate, even if you challenge it and win, costing 5k plus. You don't actually win anything apart from being able to use their keyword to sell the product for them or the other player.

Even bigger problem is that their terms and conditions say that you can't resell their data.

They have it sewn up between them, Experian and Equifax are the only two who have the finance data. On owns HPI and the other owns Car Data.

It is basically a cartel they have and if you did try to compete they'd lower their prices to wipe you out.