Quote:
|
Originally Posted by acctman
they haven't offered to settle/buy the domain. they're just demanding it for free, and i'm not just going to hand something over just because they want it. I didn't register the domain to sell it but if they make and offer and give me a month to redirect traffic then fine.
|
LOL hey they are never going to offer you money with a C&D Letter. " please stop using your domain name, it infringes upon our trademark, we want it, and um well we might offer you some money for it ?!? " That is never going to happen. They will basically say " you violated blah blah this is your notice to stop using it, if not legal action will be persued.
I actually received a phone call from their legal consul. I listened to what he had to say, he said I had till the end of the day to stop using it. I asked him to work with me, that i needed at least 48 hours. He said ok, I said good that will be enough time for my attorney to review the case and contact you
and my attorney did. I attorney talked with him and basically told went over the 5 or 6 points of infringment. I forget them all but basically this is what I remember, are you trying to profit from their success. If you buy bestviagra, and you see a viagra like product, then you are fucked. if your name is similar to the people sending the C&D but your product is nothing like theirs, then they have no case based on that point. Good example here is Krystal.com, the guy that owned it had a printing business or something like that, opperated the business for acouple years with the website. Krystal Hamburgers cam along and sued him. Well if he was selling hamburgers, or even food for that matter, then he would be trying to profit off of their success. Only way to beat this is if the trademark is famous. If it is Microsoft.com and you want to sell gift baskets with it, it doesnt matter, the name is famous. Another point is if you are trying to tarnish their trandemark. If the purpose of you site it so make them look bad, etc... There are 3 or 4 more points. I would look them up and see how you fair.
In my case I knew I did not violate any of the sections so I pushed them to pay me or go to court. I was bluffing of course, but they knew they had a weak case and the paid me. My attorny got a nice chunk of it, but it was better then nothing.