Does prior owner who didn't renew have any rights?

[sunroof]

I just bought a name, then got an email from someone who says he is the previous owner. According to him, his registrar screwed up, and he lost the name. The name is somewhat generic, so I don't see any problems with trademark.

He is making subtle threats of legal action, while offering to buy it back for $100, and saying he has legal rights since he owned it for three years. I really don't think he has any legal rights in this situation.

Has anyone run into this? Thanks for any info you have.

[DNjet]

he has no rights to the name , get $1,000 or tell him to move on.

[dolansco]

.... and every time he threatens legal add another $100 bucks to the asking ..

Let him sue the registrar .

[katherine]

Could you dig the history of the domain name, has it been thru redemption etc or was it dropped suddenly. It may happen that people do not get the registrar renewal reminders by E-mail, but they should not rely on them in the first place.
If the domain is so important to them they should have been more careful.
Don't let the hollow threats scare you.
If the registrar has screwed up for real they should pay your asking price and give the name back to the customer

[Dave Zan]

A domain name doesn't grant intellectual property rights to anyone upon its
registration. No registrar's service agreement grants such, either.

No demonstrable trademark rights, no rights to the domain name at all.

Know who you're dealing with, then prepare accordingly.

Let him sue the registrar .

Which will unlikely prosper. But that's the other party's problem.

[poulos]

most people that threaten to take leagl action,
usually dont have the retainer fees to give the the attorneys,
they like to talk a storm,

when i used to pick up drops awile ago , i used to get those calls and emails,

[Johnn]

He failed to renew the name or his registrar messed up these are not your problem.
If they want the name back then tell them to register at dnforum.com and buy the name like anyone else.

[Gabriel]

He/she has zero rights. By the way, I bet that registrar he/she mention was GoDaddy!

[dotcomgiant]

He/she has zero rights. By the way, I bet that registrar he/she mention was GoDaddy!

Thats the information to be noted.. ;-)

godaddy ..

[Acro]

Many times the "previous owner" trick is played upon, along with the "student doing research" or "poor entrepreneur" etc. in order to obtain a domain.

[Ehsan]

i also think that person has no rights on one side he /she is offering u money while on the other threatning with legal action lol i think he will pay u money rather than any legal action coz he knows he cant win.keep us updated with this matter cheers

Ehsan

[sunroof]

Thanks, I very much appreciate all your well thought replies, and the PM's I received.

At this point, I don't think its going to turn out to be much of problem, since he has not responded to my counter offer, and it would probably cost him more to pursue the legal course of action than the name is worth.

I was careful not to give any weight to his claims. All I did in replying was to counter his original offer. After doing some research, I do believe he did own the name before, but who knows how he lost it. It might have been his fault, or the registrar's.

In any case, I'll update the thread if anything else happens.

[Dave Zan]

If the other party starts getting nasty, document every communication you've
had with him/her. Might come in handy if push comes to shove.

[DNQuest.com]

If I read this thread right, if Google or AOL failed to renew their domain, they have no rights to it anymore?

[Johnn]

Right,
Google, AOL or the owner.

The owner has the responsibility to notify the registrar if there is a problem.
There is a grace period before the name is dropped so there should be no excuses.

[katherine]

Since there is a grace period + redemption period any owner that fails to renew in time is negligent at best.
Dont rely on the registrar renewal reminders and do not delegate management of your domains to a third party like ISP or host company. You will rarely be pleasantly surprised

[petrosc]

If I read this thread right, if Google or AOL failed to renew their domain, they have no rights to it anymore?

They would have rights because of their trademarks, but in this case...

....The name is somewhat generic, so I don't see any problems with trademark.

[Slipxaway]

They would have rights because of their trademarks, but in this case...

That depends on the scope of their TMs... They may very well have TMs in all the TM categories, but if not, you'd be perfectly in the clear if you obtained it and used it for something not covered under their marks.

[petrosc]

That depends on the scope of their TMs... They may very well have TMs in all the TM categories, but if not, you'd be perfectly in the clear if you obtained it and used it for something not covered under their marks.

I understand what you are saying and I agree, but let's not forget that these companies are billion dollar monsters, and you would have to operate your new website under their restless eye. There is a very thin legal line between things that you are allowed to do and things that infringe(in some way) their trademark. You would have to have a big shot lawyer working fulltime with your webdesigner and content writer.

[katherine]

It may be interesting to check if the domain is listed in archive.org and also check for previous ownership at domaintools.com.
So you get a more accurate picture about the previous owner.