Protect a brand while stepping on somebody else's toes?

[Jernet]

I will try to make sense here, but it can be a little confusing to understand

It is a well known practice, and sometimes more affordable, to register generic dot net's, and then reg their dot com counterparts. For example:

Say you own domains.net. Common practice would be to also own domainsnet.com.

You see it a lot, and I have done this many times myself, but this time there is a TM snag

Just for an example again, you own domains.net, and you have the chance to own domainsnet.com BECAUSE it expired, and a domain broker has had it for sale for a year now, but domainsnet is a registered trademark.

Finding out that the owners of the 'domainsnet trademark' have gone out of existence, along with even their corporate main site, would it be justifiable to buy domainsnet.com, or would it be foolish?

Would you have a case, if for some reason they came back into existance? It is still a live trademark, but I am wondering why they would not have repurchased the domain from the broker, or why the broker hasn't had any trouble with it, unless they are completely gone.

The other thing that makes me think I wouldn;t have any problems, is that all the other major extensions of 'domainsnet' are regsitered, and one even has a site on it. From what i can tell, the site owner has zero connection with the trademark or company with the old company.

I hope this makes sense? Opinions are welcomed. Thanks!

[dtobias]

Personally, I see no point to that sort of thing... it's part of the silly "Everything needs to be .com" mindset. If blahblah.net also "needs" to register blahblahnet.com, does blahblah.info "need" blahblahinfo.com, and blahblah.edu "need" blahblahedu.com, and so on?

[Jernet]

thanks for the input. guess i should have pointed out that domainsnet.com was a very established site at one time, and is getting good traffic and has lots of links ;0)

[namedropper]

Personally, I see no point to that sort of thing... it's part of the silly "Everything needs to be .com" mindset.

Yeah, the silly mindset of those people who want traffic.

If you don't care if anyone can find your site, by all means skip the .com names.

Regarding the original post, if you are using it so you pick up the traffic from those people who don't go to .net names, that would be a legitimate purpose to own the name. If you go by the UDRP standards, they'd have to not only prove the name was similar to theirs, but that you had no right to use it. But you presumably do. So I would imagine you are probably safe here. Of course consult a trained attorney, etc.

[Jernet]

Regarding the original post, if you are using it so you pick up the traffic from those people who don't go to .net names, that would be a legitimate purpose to own the name. If you go by the UDRP standards, they'd have to not only prove the name was similar to theirs, but that you had no right to use it. But you presumably do. So I would imagine you are probably safe here. Of course consult a trained attorney, etc.

Makes sense. That is kinda what I am thinking. Thanks!