Quote:
|
Originally Posted by jberryhill To the original poster and some of the people screaming "fraud" - There is absolutely nothing wrong with forming corporations in Europe, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with filing trademark applications in Benelux. |
That much is obvious, but I believe there is something very wrong in applying for over 100 bogus simultaneous TM's applications on November 21, 2005, only so you can claim the corresponding domains in Sunrise period starting December 7, 2005. The key issue here is actually not the technically legal approach of bogus European-based presence, but the bogus TM applications/registrations with which they seem to be getting away in respect to Eurid rules.
They certainly have not been granted any of these applications for sure (nobody has yet) as far as I understand it, but they have been granted "valid acceptance" (by Eurid) with many of their applications and are well on the way to actually get many of them in less than two months time. Of course, the moment they get all these names in reality is the moment they will transfer the ownership to another one of their bogus European-based shell subsidiaries and with that will cover their tracks for good. The time is running out for these "loophole exploiters" to be stopped.
http://img460.imageshack.us/img460/7797/hotels9wj.jpg http://img478.imageshack.us/img478/...urniture3kv.jpg http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/8433/ask0jr.jpg http://img472.imageshack.us/img472/7317/diets3vh.jpg
...
Of course they aren't the only one, there are plenty of other U.S. based entities using European-based proxies to get some of these .EU names. The world''s favorite domain speculator's registrar based in Pacific Northwest is also using German bases company called "MINERVA Gmbh Consulting" (serach for this name here
http://register.bmb-bbm.org/bmbonlin...d/applicant.do which has 249 "Benelux" TM applications, many of them pointing at their U.S. based partners. For example they applied for "Hotels.eu" (as well as many others) on behalf on someone based in Washington state using:
trademarks@name-services.com as a contact email, but then again that's not too surprising since Minerva's official website is
http://www.enom.de/start_uk.htm