Battlebots Battles It Out: TV Show Versus IRC

Ender, Duke_of_URL writes: "Battlebots the TV show, has joined the ranks of Corporate bad-guys buy attempting to force out Battlebots.org, an IRC site that had registered their domain before Battlebots even filed for a trademark. As most of you know, in any dispute over domains it's the money that wins."

Comments

easy solution

[kfckernel]

Just have the battle bot and the IRC server in a steel cage match. THAT'LL TEACH EM!

nope nope

[TheSHAD0W]

Battlebots applied for their first US trademark in late 1999. They didn't receive it till October 2000, though. Check it out at http://www.uspto.gov.

Ack!

[anubis__]

So I wonder when Honda will recieve an e-mail from Microsoft's attorneys to "cease and desist" using the "Passport" name for their SUV.

Actually I think the cease and desist letter to the world from MS attorneys telling them to stop using the "Passport" term will be much more interesting.

There are two paths:

[moogla]

1. Find someone who will fight for them pro-bono (as they have a strong case) or get someone like the EFF involved (for funding)
   
2. Give up but ask for a little more than originally offered if at all possible.
   
3. Not neglecting option 2, also raise a gigantic fuss about it and convince everyone on slashdot not watch that show (which amounts to about everyone who does).
   

Re:There are two paths:

[cshotton]

Find someone who will fight for them pro-bono (as they have a strong case) or get someone like the EFF involved (for funding)

Bull. They have no case. BattleBots was a registered trademark 16 months before this guy squatted on the domain. Even the EFF wouldn't touch this with a 10 foot pole. The guy's best hope is to get them to pay for his original domain registration, because the registrar is going to snatch that domain name away from this kid in a heartbeat.

Blaming BattleBots for going after this squatter shows an incredible ignorance of how trademarks work. If you hold a trademark and do not vigorously defend it, you run the risk of having the mark declared generic (e.g., Kleenex, Xerox, Thermos) or reverted to the public domain.

As a corporation, BattleBots has no choice but to defend its mark or lose it. Since it has every right, established through a date of first use that is 16 months earlier than the IRC kid, how can you fault them?

The best thing that could come of your call for a boycott of the show is that you might get some pale, pasty nerd boys off the sofa and out into the sunlight for a change.

/. their PR department?

[cosyne]

From battlebots.com:

Comments, Questions, Concerns?
Let us know what's on your mind. Contact us at the following addresses:

PRESS DESK
press@battlebots.com

GENERAL FEEDBACK AND QUESTIONS
info@battlebots.com

What this is...

[Picass0]

This may be an example of some junior attorney attempting to justify his or her retainer to Comedy Central. I'm sure CC has a small army of lawyers for defending IP concerns. But as Adobe learned recently, your overzealous laywers sometime can get you in public relation deep shit. Comedy Central may not even be aware of this exchange.

My email to Battlebots

[phulshof]

Subject: Battlebots Trademark Issue battlebots.org)
Date: Sun, 02 Sep 2001 09:43:14 +0200
From: Pieter Hulshoff
To: info@battlebots.com, press@battlebots.com
CC: blyon@theshell.com

Dear Sir/Madam,

As a frequent viewer of your "BattleBots" program, I am highly disappointed to have read about your dispute with Mr. Lyon over his ownership of the www.battlebots.org website. With this you have already gathered quite a bit of bad PR, as you can view at
http://slashdot.org/yro/01/09/02/0143234.shtml.

Since it will cost Mr. Lyon a considerable amount of time, effort and money to start a new site, and move all the services he offers to the public to this new site (making all his users aware of the new location) I sincerely hope that you will consider the two options Mr. Lyon has offered you in his email. They seem more than reasonable to me. A third option was provided by Mr. Burke in an email to you (quoted from Slashdot):
"In my opinion, the best thing you could do would be to request that the current owner of BATTLEBOTS.ORG place wording on his website to the effect of "This website is not affiliated in any way with the television show BattleBots. Their website is located at www.battlebots.com." Then quietly drop the matter, and the negative press will most certainly vanish almost overnight. "

I must agree with Mr. Burke that handling this matter in a friendly and acceptable manner will save you a lot of bad press. I for one will boycott this program for as long as this matter is not amicably solved.

Regards,

Ir. Pieter Hulshoff
Almere, the Netherlands

Re:This has changed my mind.

[sallen]

I have tended to be on the side of intellectual property, but this case changed my mind. This TV show, which I have never watched, is off the deep end. How can we help this guy who currently owns battlebots.org?

I also generally favor intellectual property and trademark protection when warranted. I still do. But this, and other similar companies going after domains, doesn't pass the smell test in the least. There's no confusion of identity, they aren't engaged in any similar activity, type or scope of business, etc. The term 'bots' has been around long before their trademark. And bots 'battling' is also ancient terminology, in internet years. The trademarks (and there are numerous) are detailed to include the program and about any type of adjunct merchandising from computer games to bottle caps. However, there doesn't seem to be a dilutive impact if 'battlebots.org' isn't in a competing area. Also, it's usually the '.com' one goes after, claiming 'unintentional' hits to another site due to 'confusion' searching for plaintiff's site. Obviously, '.org' is usually NOT where one begins looking. They likely get hits from those actually looking for the '.org', since it's more internet related in this case potentially benefiting the plaintiff. Possibly at the detriment of the defendant, should they get 'interested' in the .com site and not follow up with checks for .org?

I'd go after some publicity, most certainly. The Computer/Internet press? ok. But that seems like where we usually go. Mainstream press? why not. Most important? I'd be sending every piece of material to something like Daily Variety. Even an Entertainment Tonight or Access Hollywood might pick up a snipet on something nonsensical like this 'David v. Goliath' story (as long as both are produced by their owners). If you want your PR to work, make sure it's on THEIR home turf. For the disclaimer, however, IANAL, and I don't play one on TV; just get to see 30 or 40 pages of billing detail from them every month (sigh).

Oh..and finally.. their (the .com) lawyer goes to great detail with the Lanham act. As usual, they don't quite include all the pertinent data. Including those areas where consideration may be given in regard to 'bad faith' filing for a domain name. to wit:

(B)

(i)
In determining whether a person has a bad faith intent described under subparagraph (A), a court may consider factors such as, but not limited to--

(I)
the trademark or other intellectual property rights of the person, if any, in the domain name;

(II)

the extent to which the domain name consists of the legal name of the person or a name that is otherwise commonly used to identify that person;

(III)
the person's prior use, if any, of the domain name in connection with the bona fide offering of any goods or services;
(IV)
the person's bona fide noncommercial or fair use of the mark in a site accessible under the domain name;

(V)
the person's intent to divert consumers from the mark owner's online location to a site accessible under the domain name that could harm the goodwill represented by the mark, either for commercial gain or with the intent to tarnish or disparage the mark, by creating a likelihood of confusion as to the source, sponsorship, affiliation, or endorsement of the site;

(VI)
the person's offer to transfer, sell, or otherwise assign the domain name to the mark owner or any third party for financial gain without having used, or having an intent to use, the domain name in the bona fide offering of any goods or services, or the person's prior conduct indicating a pattern of such conduct;

(VII)
the person's provision of material and misleading false contact information when applying for the registration of the domain name, the person's intentional failure to maintain accurate contact information, or the person's prior conduct indicating a pattern of such conduct;

(VIII)
the person's registration or acquisition of multiple domain names which the person knows are identical or confusingly similar to marks of others that are distinctive at the time of registration of such domain names, or dilutive of famous marks of others that are famous at the time of registration of such domain names, without regard to the goods or services of the parties; and

(IX)
the extent to which the mark incorporated in the person's domain name registration is or is not distinctive and famous within the meaning of subsection (c)(1) of section 43 [subsec. (c)(1) of this section].
(ii)
Bad faith intent described under subparagraph (A) shall not be found in any case in which the court determines that the person believed and had reasonable grounds to believe that the use of the domain name was a fair use or otherwise lawful.

For anyone who uses IRC... this is obvious.

[Electrawn]

I checked out the company theshell.com. It seems they offer vhosts for IRC.

Basically this "business" is an eggdrop site/ shell whore site for script kiddies. Also it's been noted in previous posts that the domain was registered AFTER battlebots.com was.
This is no case of a corporation going after a little guy, this is a case of a script kiddie/wannabe admin/etc whining because his leet domain is trademarked.
IRC has broken down into lame vhosts, theshell.com seems no exception.

Before you go sending off those letters to battlebots.com...just look at this:(I'm assuming with 99% certainty he owns the entire ip block)

[N] Resolved 63.236.138.57 to www.battlebots.org
[N] Resolved 63.236.138.58 to clubslut.org
[N] Resolved 63.236.138.59 to oddlyshaped.nutsack.org
[N] Resolved 63.236.138.60 to fuckthenet.org
[N] Resolved 63.236.138.61 to keg.drinker.net
[N] Resolved 63.236.138.62 to beer.drinker.net
[N] Resolved 63.236.138.63 to met.your.momma.at.the.clubslut.org
[N] Resolved 63.236.138.64 to heavy.alcohol.drinker.net
[N] Resolved 63.236.138.65 to killall-9.battlebots.org
[N] Resolved 63.236.138.66 to screwdriver.drinker.net
[N] Resolved 63.236.138.67 to irc.erisfreenetwork.net
[N] Resolved 63.236.138.68 to big.nutsack.org
[N] Resolved 63.236.138.69 to two-a-day.com
[N] Resolved 63.236.138.70 to you.aint.leet.enough.to.crack.512bit.com
[N] Resolved 63.236.138.71 to my.passwd.is.512bit.com
[N] Resolved 63.236.138.72 to i.once.hacked.512bit.com
[N] Resolved 63.236.138.73 to hacked.512bit.com
[N] Resolved 63.236.138.74 to elite.512bit.com
[N] Resolved 63.236.138.75 to erisfreenetwork.net
[N] Resolved 63.236.138.76 to ircd.erisfreenetwork.net
[N] Resolved 63.236.138.77 to erdmanphoto.com
[N] Resolved 63.236.138.78 to some-day.i.will.fuckthenet.org
[N] Resolved 63.236.138.79 to help.me.fuckthenet.org
[N] Resolved 63.236.138.80 to fuckyourmom.fuckyoursister.fuckyourdog.fuckthenet. org
[N] Resolved 63.236.138.56 to thenarrator.com
[N] Resolved 63.236.138.55 to vhosts.theshell.com
[N] Resolved 63.236.138.54 to pennstsucks.com
[N] Resolved 63.236.138.53 to emeraldbp.com
[N] Resolved 63.236.138.52 to licked.and.fondled.nutsack.org
[N] Resolved 63.236.138.51 to has.a.d0pe.nutsack.org
[N] Resolved 63.236.138.50 to instinct.love.le.gs
[N] Resolved 63.236.138.49 to DONT.touch.my.le.gs
[N] Resolved 63.236.138.48 to lezbos.like.to.lick.Britney.Spears.le.gs

Save your battles for someone who really needs help.

This guy *is* squatting

[cshotton]

As TheSHADOW points out, the event, show, and initial trademark filing for "BattleBots" predates the "battlebots.org" DNS registration by over a year. Here are the actual details from the USPTO site:

Word Mark BATTLEBOTS
Goods and Services IC 041. US 100 101 107. G & S: entertainment in nature of competitive events featuring robots.
FIRST USE: 19990630.
FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19990630
Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING
Serial Number 75681165
Filing Date April 12, 1999
Filed ITU FILED AS ITU
Published for Opposition August 1, 2000

People need to understand that priority in the DNS registration system in no way provides priority over a US Trademark filing unless you can clearly demonstrate a legitimate use and that there will be no confusion in the marketplace. IMO, this guy watched the TV show and decided it'd be a cute (though thoroughly non-original) name for his IRC service. That's misappropriation of a trademark in its simplest form.

The domain name shouldn't be his.

Simple, pain free solution

[Ikari Gendou]

Just add a little line saying "We are NOT affiliated with Comedy Central's Battlebots. The Battlebots official website can be found here."
Battlebots.com will get their hits from people mistakenly typing in battlebots.org, and everyone can get along! If people would just take a moment and do that simple thing if they have a domain that might get accidental hits, we might not have these problems.

Yes, I know. Wishful thinking..

battlebots.com

[MobyDisk]

They already have www.battlebots.com!!! This makes sense, because they are not a dot org! This is only happening because there are some lawyers who have way too much time on their hands.

I am a battlebots fan, and I am going to compose an email to comedy central alerting them that the "geek" fan base they count on is the same group that will abandon them if they pull this stuff. I suggest you all do the same.


www.battlebots.com contact page
Comedy Central Battlebots page (they have a message board)