Got a threat letter from Toys-R-US Today
 

I'm wondering if some of you guys especially lawyers or those who dealt with this type of shit can give any input on this situation.....

I own a website that uses the "R US" in it. Toys-R-US lawyers fedex'd a letter to me today saying that my website violates their trademark and the domain registration agreement of some sort. They explained how they own a bunch of "r us" trademark names and its considered very exclusive...so they basicaly telling me and demanding that I transfer the domain name to them and shut the site down. So i'm just wondering..should i just do what they say, or could i be just like "Ok i'll shut the site down, but if you want it transferred to your name you're gonna have to pay me for it" - or is that a bad idea? I never dealt with any of these issues before anyone who can give some input, appreciated..

Thanks
Paul

take a shit, stick a french flag in it, and send it to them

You should at least have your lawyer check the situation out. Most likely you'll have to shut the site down though. :2 cents:

SixNine

I wouldnt fight with large corporations over a trademark. But if they wanted the domain from me, I would tell them that I spent money on it, and they will have to reimburse me or I'm not giving it up. At any rate, I would stop using it .

Telling them you'll shut it down then asking for payment to give them the domain will just add to their case.

Go over to dnforum.com and post in the 'legal' section. A few lawyers post there regularly, 2 that have won some of the larger UDRP cases

What about the kids clothing store Kids R Us? Did they get sued or not because they arent porn? Its discrimination.... Fight them

Whats the domain name?

if it makes you feel any better i just ripped off toys r us with $350 worth the board games. well i didnt rip them off, they had a pricing mistake that worked in my favor by $350.

A search on google brings up 618,000 hits.
If you really want to keep it see a lawyer.

:glugglug

kidsrus is a part of toys r us

If you're not making much with it at this point, you'd probably be better off just taking it down.. But I wouldn't just hand it over to them. Even if they are right with trademark stuff by you using it, I don't see them being able to do anything by you just owning it and leaving it blank..

You are causing them no harm in any way by this scenario..

If he just sits on the name they will call it cyber squating and take it from you that way.

You should go to an attorney...

I'd fight that one. R-US is common usage worldwide. They are playing bully with you. Get a lawyer and tell them to take a walk.

asking for money is the bad part.

that is what judges call squatting.

If they Fedexed you a letter you need to take them seriously. I would transfer the site to another domain and leave r us domain blank. Let them know what you have done and say that you are ready to negotiate the price of the transfer. They are not going to pay you a dime - and if the domain is just something blah blah -they are not going to try to get the domain by another ways. Just let it expire.

I wouldn't like to fight with corporations - if there's no way to squeeze big deal. In most cases, domains are not worth of any fight.

There has been tons of "R-US" business names that have been around LONG before Toys-R-Us ever came out. I can't believe they have exclusive rights over anything with "R-US" in it. What about the little mom & pop business on the corner that has been there for 50 years called "Collectibles R Us", or the hole-in-the-wall restaurant called "Burgers-R-Us" etc etc???



Talk to lawyer, figure out a way to tell them to go eat a dick.

i can tell you this much , and any one from orlando FL will know this to be true thatis if you know boats and boat dealers


a very good friend of mine owned a new and used boat place there and there place was CALLED
BOATS R US < and trust me it isnt called that any more
and he has a good cash flow so if he realyl could have he would have tookit to court , so trust me i am to belive that he didnt want to wast the cash over it so pay a lawer a few bucks to make sure

or take the DOMIAN name and so you sold it and maybe you have friend out side the usa and then reg it there so owner ship there , i think that would get around them if you just have to have the name , they then cannt do shit trust me , where i live in the philippines now , they not give a shit over all that trade name shit :2 cents:

anyone remember the Radio Shack vs Bianca Smut Shack case?

Well a few select people on this board know that I have had some run-ins with Mastercard over their "priceless" advertising campaign. They tried the same bully tactics with me on my site www.thisispriceless.com. After getting advice from some of my peers I decided to fight Mastercard on it. I didn't want to give away 100k impressions a day and tons of SE traffic to those bastards!

I hired the best copyright lawyer in Canada and threw some money at it. Long story short, Mastercard has backed off and I haven't heard from them in 6 months.

The only advice I could offer you would be to sum up how much you can afford to spend on the defence, how much you make from the site and if it's worth fighting for?

I say fuck em! Good luck!

DH

Ummm what is this?

<img src="http://www.thisispriceless.com/images/frodo5.jpg">

throw in the towel they'll cripple you with legal expenses...develop another URL....

Not worth the headaches

Drinking Hard's case is an exception, and not the rule here. I'll be you got off saying it's a parody.

This is a large company you are about take on; They have teams of attorneys.

And you'd be surprised what they copyright or trademark. For example, you can't copyright or trademark a person's name if it's common - Like Jenna. But sure enough, Jenna the porn star got it pushed through.

Toys R Us is very aggressive about the "R Us" thing. Good luck with this one.

Do you use their logo? Do you promote toys on the site? Is there any chance of your site being mistakenly associated with their business (ie, do you engage in the same area of business)? Do you mislead the surfer into thinking your site is somehow associated with Toys-Backward "R"-Us? Could you possibly seen as diluting their brand recognition or injuring their sales?

If not, tell them to stuff it. A trademark on any word or phrase does not extend in all directions for all things. "Montoni's Pizza" could never hope to win a suit against "Montoni's Electronics."

SpaceAce

I could care less about shutting down this site, it barely makes any profit to me but if i have an opportunity to get atleast some money for it for the transfer to them, should i just go ahead and try it, what do you guys think?

paul

:eek7

Yes we did argue that case Rochard and that you cannot trademark the word "priceless". That was their main beefs with me. They felt that my site was interefering with their marketing campaign and bringing down their company's image.

They shut down many "priceless" sites, many of the sites were run by college students or individuals with very limited funds to defend themselves.

We offered them a plethora of options, such as buying me out. I guess they chose the other option of leaving me alone and going on to bigger fish.

DH

Make them send you a gift certificate in the amount of the domain fee for the year and transfer fee

I recently had another domain name battle with a well known tv production company based out of the states. They wanted a domain name that I had registered for my own company. I offered to let them buy the domain name from me but their highest offer was $20 to just transfer the name over.

I told them to fuck off and deal with my lawyer. After a few letters back and forth they decided against further legal action and flew the coop. Long story short, that little episode cost me $1000 in lawyer fees and I got nothing out of it.

Was it worth it? I dunno looking back maybe it wasn't since I really am doing nothing with the domain name. I just simply don't like being pushed around.

DH

Back in the early 1990's, a head shop down here in south florida was called "joys r us". They got the same heat from toys r us and they ended up changing their name to "we b joys". I don't know if they fought and lost or just caved in.

If you decide to fight a big corporation over something like this, be prepared to spend a lot on legal fees. If the domain isn't that lucrative, the juice may not be worth the squeeze.

KB - could you please fix the table tags in your sig? The board's looking mighty skinny since you posted with your new button... :winkwink:

That's the point. To me, $1,000 is a reasonable price to pay when you know you're right. One consequence of just rolling over is that it encourages more and more corporate assholes to try to take things they have no right to.

SpaceAce

amen. Beautifully said, I might add.

Interesting, did they have the trademark in question registered in Canada?

Auto Zone started out as Auto Shack, but was forced to change due to Radio Shack's crybaby antics.

Nope and that was the kicker. My lawyer questioned and challenged them on this fact when they said they did register the name in Canada.

We didn't hear back from them, so I guess they were trying to blow smoke up our asses.

DH

http://www.thisispriceless.com/images/nicehams.jpg

WTF??

It's fake...you can tell by looking at it...certain lines repeat

Yup - asshole American companies will send impressive letters to see if you will fall for it but what it comes down to is no Canadian trademark, no case.

I have a bunch of sites that some assclown fogbreather in the UK is trying to fuck with me over. He has the trademark registered in US / UK but no Canadian one.

Best part is if he applies for one all I need is a copy of his moronic emails and say the trademark is for harrasment purposes and he has to spend about $10-50k to explain himself.


Oh Canada eh? :belch:

I agree also, I thought the domain name trademarks only protect the same "type" of business and I don't think you peddling porn on a site with the R-Us in it confuses surfers!!

If I was in the same boat, even if the domain wasn't making me a penny and I had the dought to fight it I would. Stop letting the "big guys" pick on everyone!

change the whois info, tell them you sold the site ..

when you get threatened for fake whois info from the registrant, transfer to another one.. keep repeating the process

I'm not sure if this was mentioned, but find someone in Russia to register your domain and run the site. I do believe that Russia doesn't follow any trademark laws. A company I used to work for had a Russian guy that bought massive amounts of trademarked domains like that for traffic. :2 cents:

Don't tell em your willing to sell it, tell em you are willing to negotatiate out of court since it does have traffic equity. It has value if traffic is comming to it. Base your argument on your investment in the domain.

However...
Consult Lawyer if the traffic is worth fighting for.
Shit, consult one anyways thats what you should do.