parking a domain w/ potential tm issues

[kvarnsten]

When parking a domain that might risk some tm issues, is it an advantage to have it parked towards a very general page or at least not one related to the topic of the domain or the tm holder's industry? Because if you have parked, say msnmassenger.com (notice the typo) to a page promoting icq, it can be said that you intentionally try to hurt the tm holder's business? or is this irrelevant in a tm case or as an argument for businesses to make a case?

[draqon]

well i would personally advise pointing domain names to very generic pages, although there recently was a WIPO case involving one of Dr. Berryhill's clients where it was established that third-person PPC links are not evidence of infringement.

[jberryhill]

With a name like msnmassanger.com, it is not going to make a world of difference what you have it pointed at, other than perhaps the personal homepage of Ms. N. Massanger, whomever she might be.

One of the difficulties of using automatic traffic optimizers, for example the type of thing provided by Applied Semantics, is that sometimes the search optimizer will end up pointing the domain name at content which is deemed "relevant" by the program on account of the program picking up some trademark references to the term.

Of course, the problem with a multi-topic landing page is that if there is a TM-verboten set of goods and services, then the presence of multiple topics increases the likelihood that you will inadvertently have a link which will cause the TM claimant to argue as if that is the only link there.

A few cases illustrate how highly fact- and panelist- dependent these kinds of things can be.

Edmund.com - It was registered because it was a common name, but an initial landing page had a set of "automotive" links among many other topics. Even though that link category was removed on request when a problem was pointed out, the Panel chose not to consider that as an adequate remedial action.

Flamingo.com - Registered because it was the name of a bird. Unfortunately, the search engine optimizer keyed on the name of a hotel, and provided various hotel links.

Eaa.com - Registered as a three-letter, and briefly had auto-generated links in an area relevant to a trademark. In contrast to the flamingo.com dispute, the Panel grasped the fact that the auto-generated links were not indicative of the intent of the domain registrant.

[kvarnsten]

How about forwarding visitors, with or without user action required, to the misspelled site's own site using an affiliate link (if they have one). This might seem a bit indecent but I have noticed many typo sites that do just that (and that arent owned by the company site) so many people seem to get away with this. Look at casinoonet.com for example. Is this just up to how the main site's company reasons or is it in fact a pretty waterproof juridical matter from the perspective of the typo owner?

[jberryhill]

Nothing is "waterproof", and you will generally find that most affiliate agreements include specific terms dealing with the use of trademarks, and forbid that sort of thing.

Enforcement is at the discretion of the TM owner.