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Lawsuit Filed Over Domain Name Registered 16 Years Before Plaintiff's Use
HughPickens.com writes: Cybersquatting is registering, selling or using a domain name with the intent of profiting from the goodwill of someone else's trademark. It generally refers to the practice of buying up domain names that use the names of existing businesses with the intent to sell the names for a profit to those businesses. Now Andrew Allmann writes at Domain Name Wire that New York company Office Space Solutions, Inc. has filed a cybersquatting lawsuit against Jason Kneen over the domain name WorkBetter.com that Kneen registered in 1999 although Office Space Solutions didn't use the term "Work Better" in commerce until 2015. "Workbetter.com is virtually identical to, and/or confusingly similar to the WORK BETTER Service Mark, which was distinctive at the time that the Defendant renewed and/or updated the registration of workbetter.com," says the lawsuit. But according to an Office Space Solutions' filing with the USPTO, it didn't use the term "Work Better" in commerce until 2015. Office Space Solutions is making the argument that the domain name was renewed in bad faith. According to Kneen, Office Space previously tried to purchase the domain name from him and after it failed to acquire the domain name, is now trying to take it via a lawsuit.
I sincerely hope the court basically tosses this and says "you can't cybersquat if you do it 15 years before the whiny plaintiff".
Stupid lawyers.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
The trouble with lawsuits is that even if you win, you still lose.
Trademark holder did a poor job researching his trademark and finds prior use in a domain name now attempts to abuse anti cyber squatting laws to grab domain.
This is one of those areas of tech law that will need to be ironed out in the future perhaps adding a domain name check to the TM check when registering a trademark.
I hope the law going forward dose not favor the trademark holder over prior use owner.
I don't actually exist.
You can't lose a case there if you tried. And it is not reviewable or appealable to any court in the USA including the Supreme Court.
You think it is a parody from The Onion? It is what TPP does. Only foreign investors can sue the federal government seeking compensation for any change in the law or its implementation by any body (federal, state or local). They can demand compensation for not just actual losses, but for loss of hypothetical future profits their business plan assumed.
Instead these dim wits are appealing to US patent and trade mark office as a domestic investor. Such pointy haired bosses bring shame to all MBAs.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
That's a myth spread by litigious idiots whop prefer not to be seen as the scum that they are.
A simple legal agreement taking up less than one page where the domain name holder agrees not to use that domain name for the same line of business would do just fine if their intentions were at all honorable.
Suing someone who isn't infringing your trademark is not defending your trademark. It is harassing an innocent person.
This is textbook cybersquatting. He bought a whole bunch on speculation hoping to get rich quick, and now wants to cash in his lottery ticket. It's a little too late for him to claim he has a legitimate business use for it.
Thing is he bought generic domain names, and has a right to own them. He's had it for 15 years. They're claiming that's just fine, and that he could sell it to them, but didn't; then, when it expired and he renewed, they claimed he doesn't have the right to RETAIN his property (we treat domains as property, because we consider the purchase of lease as ownership, not licensing: YOU CAN SELL YOUR DOMAINS TO OTHER PEOPLE).
In effect, if you own a domain, and another company thinks they have a claim to it that does not predate your ownership, all they have to do is wait for renewal. When it comes time for your domain to expire, renewing it is treated as buying it new. If you owned Windows.com 5 years before Microsoft made Windows, Microsoft couldn't do shit; if you renewed it when it expired 8 years later, Microsoft could treat you exactly like you just registered Windows.com that day, claiming you maliciously started infringing on their trademark, even if you weren't infringing before due to prior ownership. Renewal is new ownership.
It's a bullshit approach. The plaintiff is suing because they've come up with a name, found someone else owns the name, and don't want to buy the property.
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But their lawyer saw an opportunity to waste their clients money and make some in the process.
It seems to me that if someone else was using the same name for 16 years prior to them and they claim that it's confusingly similar, they're effectively arguing that their trademark is invalid. Either they had a trademark and spent 16 years not enforcing it, or they failed to notice/mention prior art when they applied for it.
Log in or piss off.
That's a myth spread by litigious idiots whop prefer not to be seen as the scum that they are.
A simple legal agreement taking up less than one page where the domain name holder agrees not to use that domain name for the same line of business would do just fine if their intentions were at all honorable.
Like the legal agreement Apple Computer made with Apple Corp never to enter the music business in return for keeping the Apple Computer name?
Apple decided to enter the music business, Apple Corp. sued, lost and had to pay £2m to the company that had infringed on their trademark, thanks to that agreement. In the face of an army of lawyers, not only do these agreements offer minimal protection, they can actually make your position weaker.