best action to take?

[PRED]

Hi,
must be open season for ip lawyers a.k.a ambulance chasers lol

I didnt think i had any tm domains, now i get my second letter in a month! first 2 ever

i think i'm pretty safe but you never know

The domain, i obviously cant say which one, but imagine you have a product that is also a geographic place.
lets say edam or something like that.
now if you had the .org or .info or something & had parked whilst awaiting development. didnt have any cheese links, was completely under a different subject matter like games to be safe. then as soon as lawyers contact you, you throw up a safe page all about the region of edam. clearly nothing to do with other users, nothing similar.............. are you safe? are they just bullying, or will they pursue. they are a HUGE company

what if the parking company also give you a letter to say you only ever got a few cents lol from parking and was parked under completely diff. area? truth is i had forgotten about as i hardly park anything these days but luckily had sense to have totally unrelated keyword, as i of course knew of company but i also knew of area and thats what i was interested in

i feel morally im right as was registered in good faith. i was aware of the beautiful ancient region and wanted to develop a site. i also have many developed pure geo sites to back up what i say. i dont even use adsense on them and prefer to use private advertisers

got the standard email which came as shock and registered letter today.
wary to contact them at all, think i could defend myself well at a wipo and i know lawyers try to intimidate with emails full of tm logos etc when ive never used, never passed off etc. its so arrogant to think they are only people in world with right to use.
i would quite enjoy taking them on and winning.
HOWEVER, i dont want to send an email back in first instance and word wrongly and stitch myself up, theres no way i'm agreeing to their demands at end:

Nevertheless, our client would be prepared to settle this case on an amicable basis providing that you:

-Immediately cease the use of said domain name;
-Transfer amicably the domain name ............. to our client;
-Undertake in writing and on a letterhead paper not to use the trademark ........ without authorization in the future;
-Assume the costs regarding this matter.

Is there any lawyers on dnf who would send an appropriate email to them for free? As i just dont have the funds to pay out at minute. My thinking is, either just ignore them completely as i feel can defend a wipo with some studying and careful thought. Or get a lawyer in first place, make it easy for them by supplying all details and screenshots etc and links and laying out. let them send an email to the other lawyers to explain our position, no payment, but if they get a settlement out of them when they realise they might be onto a non winner split 50:50 with lawyer?

Is this a good idea? Would any dnf lawyer do this based on what i have said?
If so get in touch or tell me which ones?
Its just that these lawyers tend to talk to people terribly but worship their clients(the paymaster, right or wrong), im thinking a lawyer here may just get some respect back if dealing with them and they may just be able to work something out.Theres a good chance they will know each other i think. Ive only spoke to lawyers about a name once before and they took everything i said in good nature out of context so promised myself i wouldnt make same mistake again

Grateful for any help.

[HuntingMoon]

they probably took screen captures of the site before you got the letter, so that change may not make much of a difference. from your description though it sounds like if you take steps and notify them that you will prevent their products from appearing and you are targeting a different market, they should rest assured you have never knowingly infringed or plan to infringe. hopefully you can get to the bottom of this. i am not a lawyer fyi so my opinion is not legal advice.

[Domagon]

If your domain is .org / .info, which I think is what you're saying, and furthermore you're earning virtually nothing on parking, then this one seems to me as a "no brainer" - hand over the domains to them and be done with the matter.

Some battles aren't worth fighting.

However, if you so choose to fight back, simply doing nothing may be sufficient (assuming the domain in question is somewhat different than theirs; if it's exact other than extension, then disregard this part of my reply) - seems counter-intuitive, but it's highly likely they blindly sent out numerous C&Ds to anyone with a domain even closely similar to their brand name in hopes of simply getting voluntary settlements with no plans to pursue.

However, if they choose to pursue the matter, it's likely they'll file a UDRP on your domain along with numerous others as a group filing...

And likely the worst that would happen is you lose the domain - no biggie other than losing UDRPs can potentially increase one's risk of losing UDRP challengs in the future.

Lawsuits are rare, though can never be ruled out, but that's a lot of extra hassle for most companies when they simply want the domain.

If you choose to hand it over - my suggestion is do NOT sign anything.

Simply update the Whois to their information / DNS, unlock the domain, and provide them the authcode - then it's up to them to transfer it out at their convenience ... they may choose to simply let it expire.

Hope this helps.

Ron

[Fatbat]

Originally Posted by Domagon

...hand over the domains to them and be done with the matter.

Some battles aren't worth fighting.

Yeah, f*£% that. Tell them that the domains in question are under development, and that you have no intention of handing them over. Work on the domains a bit and sit back and wait them out. The ball is in their court and you aren't obligated to do squat for them, least of all "assume any costs".

I hate bastards like this, they can choke AFAIK.

[PRED]

hi,
thanks guys.

i have spent a lot of research on this. they play hardball and get every domain theyre after, they even got their .com this way.
in fairness i think all the people were squatters and didnt put up a defence.

i however, had good intentions. its developed into a gepo site now. i also have loads of geo sites established to back me up.
i sent imo a very good email to cover everythiung so am waiting to hear back. if they take to wipo i will fight but will be a one man panel as not risking cash i havent got on it.

i will researcgh panelists etc and put up a good defence.
if it goes all way, you'll be reading about in the near future. i will add wipo made some buffoon like errors on some of the previos cases, i think the defendants werent genuine which didnt help but they got basic factual things wrong, i will be using some of those as examples also. i will know more how big corps work when i get answer back. they can see is genuine , but if they pursue , then obviously its in lawyers interest as they earn out of it, but they may have misled them or the corpos just always want to bully.

either way the predmeister will come out victorious

cheers guys


mods? please close thread. to be continued ........................