Understand Your Trademark Rights George Bush! Avoid Overpaying $35,000 to Get Your Domain Back From A Cybersquatter
Cybersquatting creates risks under tghe UDRP, Anti Cybersquatting Piracy Act and for trademark infringement under the Lanham Act.
Repeat after me everybody. Personal and Proper Names Are Protected Under Cybersquatting Act And the Lanham Act. Here is story that makes you think you ought do a Google search for the word 'cybersquatting attorney' or 'domain name lawyer' before shelling out big cash to pay for a domain name which incorporates your personal name or trademark.
Illuminati Karate paid less than $10 for the www.GeorgeWBushLibrary.com domain name – and sold it back for $35,000 to the library's contracted Web developers, Yuma Solutions, who had accidentally let it expire. Illuminati Karate recognized what the library obviously knew as well – that anything else, like www.GWBPresidentialLibrary .com, would have been cumbersome and less than ideal.
"It worked out very well," said George Huger, lead Web developer for Illuminati Karate in Raleigh, N.C. Mark Mills, owner of Yuma Solutions, could not be reached for comment.
The real head-scratcher here is that Yuma Solutions didn't have to pay anything to get the domain back from Illuminati Karate, who was clearly cybersquatting on the domain and trademark rights of the library and George Bush personally. We posted about this previously at Cybersquatting On The George Bush Library Name. Didn't they consult and trademark attorney or cybersquatting laywer first? Of course, they still may have their $100,000 in statutory damages under the ACPA and Lanham Act to leverage if they did not sign a global release. The domain sale simply proves bad faith under both statutes.
This past week a web development company, in charge of the George W Bush Library website, purchased the domain for the site for $35k. Yes, you read that right. $35,000. They actually OWNED the domain after purchasing it from a domain holding company, originally, for $3k.
Yuma Solutions let the domain expire and another company picked it up. They could have filed a lawsuit or at the least, filed a UDRP. But, they didn’t. They simply forked over $35k and purchased the domain back.
Maybe to them, the tale has a happy ending, but to many, that option is out of the question. So, let this be a simple lesson to you. If you want to make money online, you need the domain that brings your audience to their destination, and to do that, simply make sure you RENEW.
Posted by: branded items | 2011.12.16 at 08:23 AM