iMicrosoft.com - TM violation or not ?

[URLtrader]

Hi Members ,

This question is to all of you, especially TM attorneys . If someone registers name like iMicrosoft.com , iFord.com , iPepsi.com etc and tries to sell it for profit , will it be considered as violation of TM ?

Thanks.

[thinkaholic]

Yes. It would be registered in bad faith, which would deem it a violation of TM.

[Restecpa]

Unless you can prove that by iMicrosoft youve actually meant iMicroSoft as in: mine is micro and soft

[DaddyHalbucks]

If it is a famous registered trademark and you intend to sell it, YES that is a violation.

You open yourself to potentially huge liability.

[Ari Goldberger]

Unless you have a "fair use" defense, this would arguable violate the Federal Trademark Dilution Act as well as, possibly, the UDRP. A fair use defense could be either:

1) Authorized reselling of the trademark owner's products or services;

or

2) Criticism of the trademark owner.

But, I would stay away from famous, coined trademarks -- the kind that are pretty much associated with just one party. You're just looking for a fight.

[URLtrader]

Thanks to all of you for your inputs.

[Banned: timechange.com]

Ari, what would be the case if one registered Micro2Soft.com and sold ties and socks?

[Ari Goldberger]

>Ari, what would be the case if one registered Micro2Soft.com and sold ties and socks?

Forgive my slightly cranky response.

First, answer the question as to why you would want to bother doing this in the first place?

Now, I'm not saying that the tie and sock shop is illegitimate, as I would need to hear more -- and I understand this is just a hypo. But, generally speaking... I think we, as a domain name community, can advance our cause by not always looking at how we can be clever and beat the "man" (the man being the trademark owner).. It's not like the trademark owners as a group is this evil empire to defeat. Companies with famous, distinctive marks that they have spent millions of dollars nurturing have a valid interest in protecting their brands. If you really want to criticize a company (Microsoftsucks.com) or need to use the mark to sell a bona fide product (Elvislookalikecostumers.com),that's cool.. But just figuring out ways to stick our tongues out at the trademark owners is a waste of valuable time in my opinion.

Every domain name owner is not a victim. Sometimes the trademark owner is right. But, when we're dealing with a descriptive or common word mark, I'll be the first in line to defend your rights to ownership against a reverse domain name hijacking trademark owner.

[Banned: timechange.com]

Ari well-said. Forgive the rather naive example; my intention was to see where I stand in a similar case where I am the tm owner and I'm challenging the applicant. I emailed John on the subject (with details) but I understand that he's busy or unable to comment. My related thread was this one.

[actnow]

Along this line of thought. Usually, I use a bookmark. But, earlier today I typed in paypal.com

However, I accidently put an "s" on the end. I was shocked. That I got a different company. I was also surprised that PayPal (Ebay) hasn't gone after them.

[DaddyHalbucks]

Along this line of thought. Usually, I use a bookmark. But, earlier today I typed in paypal.com

However, I accidently put an "s" on the end. I was shocked. That I got a different company. I was also surprised that PayPal (Ebay) hasn't gone after them.
+++++++++++++++++

1. This is a potential security risk for PayPal.

2. The entity that owns the domain PayPals.com (MrsJello, LLC in the WhoIs) appears to be cybersquatting on a famous registered trademark.

This sort of cybersquatting indirectly hurts us all. Large corporations and the courts use this sort of flagrant blatant abuse to justify their overreaching in other cases, and to beat down small entities that legitimately own generic domains. Cybersquatting hurts us because it brings the heat down.