closed SonyWalkmanPhone(s).com ~W800i~

[Paddy]

.

 

[StockDoctor]

$0 Trademark problem

 

[Mr. Pim]

Of course it has TM issues, but that doesn't mean it is trash.
I would say about 6 months revenue.

 

[StockDoctor]

Of course it has TM issues, but that doesn't mean it is trash.
I would say about 6 months revenue.

Sure it's trash, to a domainer. Now squatters (non-domainer) might pay for it.

 

[Paddy]

.

 

[StockDoctor]

Hey doc... potential TM issue is certainly there. Some medium term domain investors will avoid them (like your goodself) whilst others will be buyers of the risk, hoping for higher rewards.

The risk is not the issue. All investors in domains take on a certain amount of risk. The problem with squatting does NOT have anything to do with risk. Squatting is NOT ok no matter what the gain or the risk as to how long they can squatt and misdirect traffic till it's taken away. That's similar to the logic of how much can someone steal from the store until running too much risk that they'll get caught.

But, it seems that a large percentage of Domainers are Traders (can Traders be considered Domainers?) who are happy with a quick turn. Traders value assets quite differently to Investors. A key concern of traders before buying, is how much he can sell it for... how much a new buyer is willing to pay for it. If he can sell it tomorrow for 100% profit, he's not so worried about TM issues 1 year down the road.

Nothing wrong with being a Trader, or owning a name for the appreciation. Fully qualified activity of a Domainer.

I guess thats why we've seen quite a few TM related domains changing hands above their $0 value in here.

Wev'e seen blayant TM squatted names (cyber or typo) trading hands here because some people don't care how they make a buck, and they don't care about the idea of themselves misdirecting (stealing) traffic from it's intended destination and the revenue that the traffic represents. They also don't care how their actions give real domainers a bad rep. They are only in it for themselves. A shame.

 

[Rubber Duck]

I agree with some of what you are saying, but I think it is a more complexed area, as not all cases are black and white. The other side of the coin is large companies that would lay claim to half of the dot com name space given half a chance. TM is a very complexed area, and trademarks are not generally independent of geographical or product area. For example if you owned Harley.com, then realistically you should be able to use it sell just about anything but Motorbikes.

I feel that the existing system works reasonably well. If firms don't register the Typos then they will probably loose much of that traffic anyway. I would not bother with Typos, as it is difficult to know what you are going to get and much of the Traffic would be Engineered and very short-term.

I know for a fact that some of my IDN are potentially in breach of TM, but I don't see that is a problem as at the moment I am only really using to monitor traffic. I would be quite happy to hand them over to anyone with a genuine claim on the name, on the proviso that they actually use it. That would be contractual. If they claim it is a TM, then it not unreasonable to expect them to display it on their homepage.

Best Regards
Dave Wrixon