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Originally Posted by namedropper Personally I think that's a ridiculous argument. A company shouldn't have to defensively register every possible variant of every trademark they own. Between typos and combinations with other words and phrases, it's impossible to register them all.
I would agree that it's wise to register some of the common ones if you are worried about it and have the money, but you can't put the blame on the company for a cybersquatter finding another variant to register and try to scum money off of.
Dittot for forgetting to renew. Yes, it's their fault they didn't renew, but it still doesn't excuse someone else registering it to try to infringe upon the trademark. If someone else registers it and uses it for some legitimate purpose that doesn't infringe upon their marks, fine, but nothing excuses cybersquatting.
Now of course none of these arguments relate to the three letter issue or trademark overreach, but I had to respond to the idea that the company is to blame if someone else tries to rip them off. |
I said "at least partly to blame", and my point was that the UDRP dispute venue isn't necessary to take care of the disputes that will inevitably arise. Of course you can't register every domain name that potentially could include a variation of your mark. But you ought to register the ones you care enough to litigate over.
The so-called cybersquatting problem that originally spawned the whole mess had little to do with "typosquatting". It was the extortion of the holders of famous trademarks by holders of the domain names most suitable for those the companies that owned those marks.
I'm not defending trademark infringement of any kind, just arguing against the policy that results in decisions like this one.
As far as failure to renew a domain name, I think that can be legitimately viewed as an indication that the previous owner no longer has any interest in the domain. Some arbitration panels have accepted that as a reasonable defense against bad faith registration.