What should I do?

[peteboy48]

Hi all,

I am actually stating a company. I bought the domain name and all the different ways to right it except one, because someone owns it. I communicated with the owner to buy the name and he asks too much. Do I have a legal issue to get the domain? What are your suggestions? Thanks!

[Dave Zan]

I'm rather confused. So you established a business called Company A, someone else has CompanyA.com matching that, you want to buy that name, the owner gave a price too high for comfort, and you're asking if you have some legal right to obtain that?

If I actually understood your question, the answer to that is it depends. A trade name and a trade mark are two different things, the latter giving legal rights up to a certain degree.

A trademark aims to prevent confusion, and not necessarily grant some absolute magical claim to any and all domain names bearing it. Unless you show that the owner intended to infringe your trademark right if any, then unfortunately you have no legal right to that domain name.

While I understand the desire to acquire something for one's personal interests, it tends to unnecessarily create ill will when one desires to force the issue just because one isn't seemingly having his way.

[dvdrip]

All you do is haggle and then maybe get the next best available domain name.

You can't take it legally. It's strange that someone will ask that.

Would you make this question in this situation?
Someone owns a nice house, he won't sell it to me for what I am offering, can I sue him?

[angel69]

I think I know what you're saying, you started Company X and you regged the domain CompanyX in all the "right" extensions except one ("all the different ways to WRITE it" = the domain name in most major extensions) Is the one you didn't get the .COM ? I hope not, if that's the case then you should never have started a venture when the .com is taken, except for a very few cases where you really know what you're doing and that's the "only" name you want

He owned the domain CompanyX.xxx before you created your biz, that definitely helps him. If he won't sell at a price you can pay you can try TMing the term (except that's exactly what some loser is threatening to do to me (no offense lol !) I have owned the domain for a long time before he even started his "venture" and now he's threatening to TM the name so he can take my domain from me, I started a thread on that, but he's a flake, I stopped thinking about it, but I am biased on this one)

While there are cases I've seen where the TM holder wins, even if the domain existed perhaps for years before, when it was owned by somebody else, I think that's the exception and not the rule. Your best bet if he doesn't go down on the price is to try to coexist, he's using it for something other than your own biz, right ? And he is not the one trying the legal route to stop you either, it is you who's having an issue w/this. So, unless he's using the domain in a way that interferes w/the nature of your biz you have some serious thinking to do before going the legal route (And let me know if I misunderstood your situation)

Hi all,

I am actually stating a company. I bought the domain name and all the different ways to right it except one, because someone owns it. I communicated with the owner to buy the name and he asks too much. Do I have a legal issue to get the domain? What are your suggestions? Thanks!