Which reminds me, I have to get my site http://www.blackhotgirls.com back up
Thanx :thumbsup

It's gona come down to a very simple question of trademark infringement.

Did you copy them? If you TRULY didn't then fight it and tell them to goto hell but I suspect you did, and if you did you will (and should) loose.

Are you profiting on the good will they have established for their name/product? If your advetising is competing with them head to head in the same markets and they have trademark you're gona loose.

Ask yourself those question before you fight it. If you're guilty of both you'll just waste a lot of time and money fighting a loosing battle.

what country are you incorporated in ?

This guy hasn't lost his case yet and he's battling a heartless multinational corporation.
nissan.com

Quite the story, he used to have a link up on his site about Nissan's lawyers strong arming him. His last name is Nissan and he registered the domain when they were still Dauston.

Burtman

hey Jester.

I did a quick trademark search on 'gone wild'.

There are two companies in different fields that own the right to 'girls gone wild'. One in cosmetics and one in porn (Registration Date December 12, 2000
Owner (REGISTRANT) MRA HOLDING CORPORATION LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY CALIFORNIA 8899 BEVERLY BLVD. SUITE 810 BEVERLY HILLS CALIFORNIA 90048 ).

Then there are a ton of other 'gone wild' trademarks.

He also own the 'gone wild' trademark for the field : IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: Pre-recorded video tapes and DVD's, all featuring movies and television programs of all kinds


So if you have pre recorded video on a site that is called 'gone wild' you're breaching trademarks.

Nevis (St. Kitts & Nevis).

hurry and change it to a cosmetics site and tell them to fuck off. then later on change it back.

i dont think they have any trademark

http://www.nameprotect.com/cgi-bin/F...girl+gone+wild

Those sites look like you are trying to cash in on the Girls Go Wild brand name to me. That's illegal. I'd back down.

I can't believe how many of you guys think he's gotta roll over!

"Gone Wild" is far too common in linguistic use in this country to be trademarkable in that broad a manner. GIRLS Gone Wild I see them owning rights too of course.... but to say ANYTHING Gone Wild they can stop - no fucking way. Might as well have ESPN News sue anyone who has NEWS in the domain. This is just like when sex.com tried to go after everyone with sex in the domain name.

Doesn't fly. You want leads to an excellent law firm on this, let me know. I've seen this fight a few times.

The only thing - as pointed out by a few guys is you can't go ripping their whole pitch and idea as well. I'm speaking strictly of domain name use here.

Is the Hun infringing Yellow Pages?

http://www.nameprotect.com/cgi-bin/F...s=yellow+pages

I've gotten a few letters Pollet & Co. I assume that is who yours was from too.

Here is a decision where wipo took back domains named "ceasarspalace", but left "teaserspalace" intact.

http://arbiter.wipo.int/domains/deci...2002-0066.html

Personally though - I think you would lose, but I can't point to a single decision that would lead me to believe that. I think Mark makes some good points.

I have read a bunch of these cases and due to the niche and market invloved - you might have problems, but then again - you aren't using the whole trademark.

I don't know, but I really doubt they will sue you for it. Their law firm is sending out hundreds of these letters. I know several people that have gotten them.

They can't go around suing everyone - and my guess is they have bigger fish to fry.

They can (apparently) file a UDRP complaint against multiple people at one time. They very well may do this - as it would only cost them $1500 to go after hundreds of people.

However, you can't lose money in UDRP arbitration - only the domain.

My .02

They have a lot of domains to go after then:

http://www.domainsurfer.com/ssearch.cgi?dom=gonewild

only if someone registered the trademark in regards with 'adult'. Also it's not in his domain, it's only typed on his page.

Agreed, but his trademark is for "The Huns Yellow Pages"

Did he not have the 'Yellow Pages' in his mind when he registered that name?

Clearly he did.

"only if someone registered the trademark in regards with 'adult'. Also it's not in his domain, it's only typed on his page."



Well thats how girls gone wild went after me. I had a search engine page which had a phrase something like "watch hot girls gone wild with nice asses". Something like that, where the term girls gone wild was just connecting some keywords. I wasnt trying to target that term.

But they sent a c&d. Ass fuckers.

Needless to say we had a domain with girls gone wild in it and we got a cease and decist as well. It sucks because we got great SE rankings for the site but not under those keywords!!:mad:

Maybe transfer them to some friend in some far off land where they can't do shit... :p

Or make up a fake account in like China -- then when the lawyers contact your "new" owner, just reply to them w/ all kinds of freaky ASCII characters hehe...

Last I heard he still hasn't gotten his money because that fucker who stole his name is hiding out in Mexico.

GIRLS GONE WILD
IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: prerecorded videotapes featuring adult entertainment. FIRST USE: 19981201. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19990101


Ok, so the 'Goods & Services' section of the GGW trademark filing states the above. If I am not promoting videotapes, then am i in violation of their trademark?

Also this was not an attempt to cybersquat them. I never had any intentions of trying to sell these domains to girlsgonewild, rather the intention was to be a play off a portion of a catchy phrase. If every time someone tried to parody something it turned into a lawsuit this would be a pretty shitty country to live in.

If the term 'gone wild' used in conjunction with drunk chicks getting naked in public is now owned by some corporation then i'm going to trademark the words 'fuck off' in conjunction with displaying my middle finger. :321GFY

Sell them to some russians and or ukranian's for a few bucks, then tell the lawyers to GFY, & try to seek restitution from them

BWAAAAHAHAHAAHA

yeh pornjester, I agree with you in concept but I'm not a lawyer

it seems as if '....gone wild' is a bit of a stretch on their part

sounds like some bored greedy lawyers is all...

if you're making money off those bad boys then call one up and get their jist on it....if it's worth it

if not, sell them to the ruskies ;)

Not very original, either. Kind of like setting up a Boff Bus site. Trying to pick up the scraps under someone else's table.

I'm not a trademark attorney, but I know that some companies lose their trademarks as the use of the terminology gets overused, which is why companies defend their trademark properties.

So what? You would be surprised if "cash.com" or "television.com" was available. Just because you're surprised no one beat you to it doesn't mean someone else has a better claim than you do.

SpaceAce

I've been following that case for a couple of years now. He has like 500 pages of comments from people supporting him and one or two morons saying "Nissan is a bigger company, they deserve the name."

SpaceAce

Dear Pornjester:

This business was pioneered by people who were much smarter and more ruthless than these latecomers.

Talk about being a day late and a dollar short, these guys are years late and very short.

The new Visa regs are here because of the internet "pioneers" and these "gone with the wind" guys are about to reap what others have sown.

Pity these people grovelling over four word domains and laugh at them at the same time. :-)

Ian

PS: Hi Mark :-)