50 trademarked domains...

Hurry up and register makdonalds.com too :winkwink:

That will teach them,

Listen to this man. We ignore every C & D initially regarding domains. Trademark owners often think they have 15 inch dicks to swing around. Many many times their claims are fruitless.

Now if you get a certified or Fed Ex letter then obviously you have to evaluate the situation more. Depending on your knowledge of domains you might be smart to talk with a lawyer but even at this point there are still options which don't necessarily involve just handing over the name.

It all depends on how much energy & money you want to put into this. Bloxbuster.com is interesting. I am on the fence on this one but I am leaning more towards their claims being bullshit. But who knows. There is only one final opinion that matters should the name be contested. And the cases that get reviewed can really go either way... Good luck.:thumbsup

Phonetic misspellings are covered under trademark law if the TM holder can show dissolution of their brand/name. Obviously the use of adult is something that BlockBuster does not want to be associated with and can easily demonstrate bad faith.
WG

To me 'blockbuster' & 'blocksbuster' sound completely different.

I just looked at your site and their site and there is no way they have a case. Tell them so.

I can see why BlockBuster might be upset, but he isn't doing anything that anyone might confuse one as being the other. They have their work cut out for them proving bad faith.

If he was using their colors, or fonts, or design, then I would agree. Isn't the case here.

Good point

Who owns Block Buster? Viacom. What are some compaines Viacom owns? BET, Comedy Central, CMT, MTV, Nickelodeon, Spike, Vh1, Paramount, Dream Works and up until 2005 CBS.

You're going to lose it.

It doesn't depend if they have 1000 billions or $1 on their account. They have no case to win. I guess courts in the US don't decide upon bank accounts, but upon laws.

tell 'em to go fuck themselves.

if it was 'blocks' I would think they would have a case, but not 'blox' :)

Would you have registered that name at all if not for BlockBuster.com? Honestly? If you did, then stop being a dick and turn it over, be happy if they don't decide to fuck with you anyway.

Haha where do you live? :1orglaugh

Ask for $$$ and be happy!

yeah sell it to them for 5 zillion dollas

.........

as any attorney will tell you, you have chosen the correct first course of action... you ran to a porn forum called 'go fuckyourself' which is full of degenerates and retards and asked for advice on what to do about a major corporation and its own well seasoned in house counsel team that is threatening you.

you should browse the other forums. i am sure the blockbuster attorneys are on netpond or porn city or someplace also trying to figure out what course of action to take for your domain and are surely also seeking advice from a bunch of low income, unemployable twits. this way, you gain another edge.

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh :1orglaugh

Just send it to them who cares not worth the trouble! Now if it was block.com or buster.com I would tell them to eat a dick.

I have www.oilofalay.com

I figure it won't be long until I get one of those letters.

ignore it.

In 2001 i received a letter from Dreamworks about me owning dreamworks??????.com and using it for a porn page. I ended up selling it for 2k.

What trouble? He doesn't have to do anything. If they take the domain from him, its the same as when he gives it to them.

Yes quite aware of that, but then they have to demonstrate Bloxbuster is even an uncommon mispelling.
Which according to overture and wordtracker, it does not even warrant 1 single search a day wordwide.

http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/su...ter&country=us

Trademark and Intellectual property lawyers work on billable hours to the client often at $250 per hour. What you have here is an overzealous attorney making a spurious and frivolous case to pad his billable hours.

:thumbsup

If your not making much money from the site I'd do what Pipecrew just suggested

It's amazing how little the idiots on GFY know. There's nothing you can do. It's an obvious misspelling of the name. Who gives a motherfuck if blox is a word. They're going to get the name one way or another. You've already lost, so just ask for a few hundred and call it a day.

the Belgium I come from has blockbuster ...

Why you should transfer it to their client?????
Try to sell it very expensive to them...

so how come other mis-spellings of blockbuster aren't owned by them? seems so many of you would just let big business walk all over you. even if he did end up losing it i'd sooner waste their time and money than let them think they can get any domain that resembles their name for nothing.

Really ? I was in brussels and never saw one. Now that I'm in Wallonia, it is the same. No blockbuster shop.
They should sue blockbuster.be if they got shops in Belgium ;)

Very interesting thread with many different opinions ;-)

Like PipeCrew said try to make some money offering them to settle right now. Tell them you never intented to even have a site looking like there's or bank off their image and that you would at least like to get some money back, since you did beleive you where not infringing anyone and invested time and money to develop bloxbuster.com

Attached to that email a picture of a puppy, this should win their heart and make you a few bucks.. lolol ;-)

That is a total bullshit letter. They have no case. They are claiming that it is an intential miss spelling. an intentional miss spelling would be blockbster.com or something similar to that. blox and block are not even close.

I would put emphesis on your site around the word "blox" like maybe that is your nick name or it means something non related to renting movies.

No one is typing in bloxbuster trying to get to blockbuster no one is seeing bloxbuster on a SE and thinking it is blockbuster. You are not making any money off of their fame because, you are not renting or selling movies, they have no case.

absolutly does not matter 1 bit. All he has to say is his Nick Name from High school was " blox" and he can get 10 friends to confirm this. Or any other reason for use of the name. They don't know what his intentions where, only what the evidence is he will show.

I wonder how many of you telling him to give it over have been through a TM case for a domain name. I have and my name was the SAME as their trademark, and it was a .net and they even owned the .com . I got my attorney involved and they eventually bought it from me. And it was large US company. Each case is different, but unless you have gone through it, I wouldn't be suggesting to give it over so easy.

There is nothing wrong with him asking " what do you think I should do here". GFY is not 100% morons. Some people have gone through similar cases and can provide feedback to him, it is not like he started a poll and Yes / No should I give it to them or fight it and he will go with which ever gets the most votes.
Just because he is asking for advice does not mean he has to use it. :2 cents:

Good to see some clever response.

Indeed. Thanks everyone, I'll keep you posted ;)

Yes, and they will pay it. I had a dispute with Lexus for several weeks that likely cost Lexus several thousand dollars but they will do it.
WG

Lexus didn't pay a cent...the shareholders did :)

i would get the trademark for bloxbuster! :)

See how much they are willing to pay you for the domain.

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh

First intelligent post in this thread.

Excellent advice.

You can also go for 10k and see how much they offer in return.

If they really want they can take it from you. It will cost them though. So why not make some money on it.

On a side note..Looks like you regsitered bloxbuster.com a few months before they registered blockbuster.com.
You registered in 2003 right?
Doublecheck these things and investigate when they licensed the trademark. Especially for the Benelux.
You may still need to turn it over but a lawyer should be able to get you a nice compensation for the work you did on the site.

You are from Belgium, right. I did a research here

http://oami.europa.eu/CTMOnline/Requ...n_Result_NoReg
(just type in blockbuster into the trademark name field)
and got 9 results. The one most dangerous for you is trademark #002045391 which was filed in 2001 and - that´s interesting - was registered in 2004.

Your problem is that the trademark is also registered in Nice class 41 for "providing digital images from the internet". So your domain name could be hurting the trademark.

To be sure, contact a trademark lawyer in belgium. But most likely, you will lose that fight. And be careful asking them for money to transfer the domain. That could cause some bigger problems for you because European trademark law punishes this if you registered the domain illegally, for example just to profit from the trademark owners reputation.

I´m not familiar with the law in Belgium, but it´s pretty much the same in all European countries which belong to the EU.

a udrp does not cost an arm and a leg btw. less than $5k for them.

well ............. give it to me and I will deal with them, like I did with "the queen of sky" and others.

Not legal advice but Fish & Richardson (a large intellectual property law firm) indicated to us that we couldn't trademark Webcams.com due to it being a generic name (although we could trademark logos, specific phrases, etc). I don't see why blockbuster would be any different since it was a generic word well before Blockbuster Video came along.

you could have gone on the supplemental for a separate category and then tried to move it onto the principle registry later :2 cents:

Tell them to send their wives over to touch your peepee.