A pharmacy company recently released a new product that will revolutionize weight loss. This product is going to be promoted on Oprah.

What they did not do is register its trademark or domain name. I did

I contacted a lawyer and he says that they have a weak case if they want to take me to court. So the pharmacy company has offered to buy the domain. They want me to come with a offer and I have no clue how much to ask.

So how much do you think such a domain would be worth (to them)?

I contacted a lawyer and he says that they have a weak case if they want to take me to court.
Ask your lawyer. Yes, ask your lawyer, seriously.

If they have a trademark on the name, your lawyer may be well advised to visit WIPOs website. I believe the current fee charged is $1500 for them to arbitrate on who holds intellectual property rights in the name.

If they have a good lawyer and you ask to much, they might try the WIPO method

http://arbiter.wipo.int/center/faq/domains.html

@host4cents

Thanks for the website.

They have not trademarkt the name.

[QUOTE=JohnburkThey have not trademarkt the name.[/QUOTE]
You mean they have not registered their trademark?

I'd be very careful about naming a sum. This could be used as evidence against you, to suggest that you registered the name in bad faith.

Other than that I agree with those who suggest you talk to a lawyer.

No, they have not registerd their trademark.

My lawyer says that I have a big chance of winning in court and the company who wants the domain, knows that. That is why they are offering to buy.

I just don't know how much I should sell it for.

Say work out how much the court costs would be and ask for that..

Rus

If a domain is registered before a name is TMed, then I dont see any way that they can force you to give up the domain - as you owned it before a TM was in place :)

John probably have a good side of the situation if we think about the kind of promotion pharmacy might get on the Oprah show. Also the kind of promotion and future prospects of the product for the company would be an accurate measure.

One problem might occur as if the phamacy company find out about this thread and probably think of it as something that should have been kept in private. Even though the situation is on your side, I would suggest to be careful as this might pull your leg hard enough up to the edge.

Nice one, John.

Hope you have lots of bandwidth. Be prepared for your website to go down because of too much traffic when the show is aired.

How much is stupidity worth?

If it's a major drug company, and they refuse to offer, or offer you a silly price, then ask for $100,000 and settle for $50-75,000 :) Actually, the sky's the limit on this one, assuming you've got all your ducks lined-up as you say.

Thank you for the information.

Who is better off?

A. The company who has the TM but does not use the name in any of its products (yet).

or

B. The company who already uses it in her products but does not have the TM, and used it in her products before company A had trademarkt it?

I'm not a lawyer, but I thought you couldn't get a trademark without showing just reasoning for having one. I would have thought that the company that uses it in it's products has an implicit trademark already although it not yet registered. Ask your lawyer. I'd rather be in position A though. Or B with lots of money to throw at it :)

Ithe company that uses it in it's products has an implicit trademark already although it not yet registered.
This is often referred to as common law trademark.

Tell them you really had no intentions to sell the name so if they wish to purchase it they should make an convincing offer to make the sell possible. This accomplishes two things. It has them make the initial offer and if they did try to take it from you you have made the statement that it isn't your intention to sell. If you're going to use this you obviously don't want to have it on a "For sale" page. And whatever you do don't have it land on any sort of weight or pharmaceutical pages either.

I would settle quickly. If they launch without the website then they will brand thier product to a different website. Once they do that then the worth of your original domain name will go down. Also, I've heard of laws/rules called cybersquatting and I understand that the cybersquatter usually loses. Finally, the name of their product will probably qualify for an implicit trademark in the pharmacy industry. If you try to use the name of the product for a website that has anything to do with the pharmacy industry you will probably get sued.

If they sue you and they lose it will cost you money. If they sue you and they win it will cost you more money.

Please keep us informed of progress, it will be interesting to know what happens.

Pharmacy companies do not diddle in the thousands for anything. If these guys are like a normal pharmacy company, they'll have MILLIONS ready to spend to protect their product(s).

The fact they stupidly overlooked regstering a domain name does NOT mean you would win a WIPO domain dispute.

They could easily beat you by nickel and diming you to death.

But more likely they'll use whatever amount you reply with as "proof" of your bad intention that you registered the domain SOLELY to profit from THEIR product.

A trademark is not needed to win a WIPO dispute case.

Good luck to you. If the domain is highly specialed and is not a "generic" word.. then you will likely lose. You should ask a lawyer who specializes in domain disputes.... because your lawyer might very well be a specialist in divorce law.. which wouldn't make you look to smart when the pharmacy company rolls out their 5 lawyers who cost hundreds an hour.

Play carefully.

If you have nothing to lose, then try ignoring them and put up some idiotic really bad looking website that has nothing to do with their product. That'll cheese them off, and eventually you might get lucky and they'll offer YOU a price.

:)

Good luck! Be sure to let us know how this turns out.

What a disgusting cybersquatter perversion of the ICANN system. :|

All they have to do is show this post in court, proving that you planned to extort them, and you're screwed. They might even take my attitude toward for-profit domain name squatters and spend their money on lawyers instead of sending a single dime to your pocket.

@muzzleflash

Please read the whole post! It has nothing to do with ICANN and I did not buy the domain to extort anyone!

This is why half the domains registered that could be websites for some poor college student are instead parked ad pages. :rolleyes:

This is why half the domains registered that could be websites for some poor college student are instead parked ad pages. :rolleyes:

Are you talking about milliondollarhomepage??? hUh?

It's not clear to me why this isn't a textbook case of cybersquatting.

If it is, ICANN gets into it when the pharmaceutical company files for dispute resolution. Much cheaper and faster than a suit - arbitration seems to be running about 2 months. The lawsuits come after arbitration, of course.

That ICANN stuff is about the domain name, not the trademark.

There must be more to the story. Did Johnburk just happen to already own the domain and trademark on a name which the pharmaceutical company later decided to use for its product? That may work. Or did he rush to get the trademark and domain after the company had decided on them? (Pharmaceutical companies run into this often, with fake priority claims - it's an old scam in the patent business.) In that case, I suspect dire events lie in the future.

So why did you get the domain name?

Unless you really know what you're doing, do what nameslave said.

Are you talking about milliondollarhomepage??? hUh?

Well, the fact that you'd immediately think of such bizzarely scammish ways to make money online makes sense given the site listed in your sig, but no.

I want a few domains. I have legitimate desires for them and sites I would enjoy developing on them- not business sites! Unfortunately, some people are demanding from 500 to 14,000 for them.

I can understand and accept selling the domain of a website that you built. But buying something for 9 dollars and then making thousands on it? That's a little messed up and ruins the system for the normal people. ICANN should fine and ban people from the system who register domains for the sole purpose of resale. :D

What a disgusting cybersquatter perversion of the ICANN system. :|

All they have to do is show this post in court, proving that you planned to extort them, and you're screwed. They might even take my attitude toward for-profit domain name squatters and spend their money on lawyers instead of sending a single dime to your pocket.

Exactly what i was thinking. You are going through the law and rules about squatting, but surely what you just said in the post proves that you did??
I may have not read it correctly, but as far as I see it, you saw that the drugs company was making this "Oprah" product, and thought you'd register it so that they'd buy it off you later??

Also, i like your signatures Muzzleflash :) Very true. Couldn't agree more.

What they did not do is register its trademark or domain name. I did
...I did not buy the domain to extort anyone!
I guess it comes down to when you registered the name. If you bought it after knowing they were going to launch this product, then IMO this is a clear case of cybersquatting.

As already suggested, make sure you lawyer up in a strong way. Don't just call up any lawyer either. One who specializes in civil or divorce law, for example, will not be your best choice. Find someone who has intimate knowledge of trademark, Internet, etc.

And I'm no lawyer, but IMO don't reply to any request that asks you how much you want for the domain. As far as I know, there is a huge difference between someone offering you a price, versus you asking a price. This speaks to the nuances of cybersquatting laws.

And finally, it's a long shot that they would ever find this thread since it's pretty generic and you haven't mentioned any searchable brand names. But still, you're not doing yourself any favors by discussing it in public and thereby leaving any incriminating trails.

Vito

A pharmacy company recently released a new product that will revolutionize weight loss.
Not another revolutionary weight loss product? :D :rolleyes:
So how much do you think such a domain would be worth (to them)?
So you registered that domain after you saw their weight loss product, that was going to be promoted on Oprah? Or you just happened to own the domain, and they made a weight loss product with the same name?

I'd say you're screwed. They'll take you for everything you've got, (and they've probably got deep pockets), if they can prove that you registered that domain in bad faith, with the hopes of extorting them for a massive profit.

Or, they're offerring to buy because it would be cheaper and quicker for them to do so, rather than dragging you through the court system.

The fact they stupidly overlooked regstering a domain name does NOT mean you would win a WIPO domain dispute.

They could easily beat you by nickel and diming you to death.

But more likely they'll use whatever amount you reply with as "proof" of your bad intention that you registered the domain SOLELY to profit from THEIR product.

A trademark is not needed to win a WIPO dispute case.


Yes and no :D

Whether they "overlooked" a potential domain name registration or not is irrelevant, not every "product" is registered as a domain, IMHO it devalues the point of domain names.

Yes, they could easily nickel-and-dime you to death, companies with deep pockets are able to do this.

They cant use your *reply* with a price as proof in a bad-faith case on UDRP, if *they* asked you for the price. They can use you contacting them offering to sell as such.

If you registered the domain after hearing/reading about the product they can get you on passingoff/badfaith/other reasons, but will cost them at least $1500 in costs and 5k in time/effort.

If they are using the name/logo/mark then they have a trademark - *registering* is not necessary for it to be a trademark just helps in legal cases, and allows them to hunt down abusers of their mark.

Good luck, my advice, is that if they came to you asking for the domain as relates to their product, to sell but dont push your luck !

Thanks everyone

-UPDATE-

As I posted before, I had already made an offer. Not a huge one, but considering how much it is worth for me, not for them.

I got a reply back that they find the offer to high and are going to contact me.


As for the product being on Oprah, well it was a lie! The journalist who put it on the front page of the most sold newspaper, seems to be a close friend of the representative of the pharmacy company. Who had made up the story for free publicity. So he can setup a database for direct (email) marketing. His page is getting around 5000 unique visitors a day, for the last 2 weeks, so I guess by the end of the month, he will have (email) addresses of something like 100.000 people who want to loose weight. Something that a lot of people want, specially at the beginning of the new year.

As for my domain. I did register it before the publicity, it is a common name, they you can lookup in the dictionary. It is NOT their product name, but company name. They have not used it before in this country, and the company name is not registered ant any office or official organisation (such as chamber office or trademark office). They have only done this in the US, not in my country!


I did not register the domain name to sell it. I only considered selling, once they called me and wanted to buy it.

If they give me a great price. I will sell, but as things are looking now. I am not going to sell it, but use it, as I intended in the first place!

A pharmacy company recently released a new product that will revolutionize weight loss. This product is going to be promoted on Oprah.

What they did not do is register its trademark or domain name. I did

I contacted a lawyer and he says that they have a weak case if they want to take me to court. So the pharmacy company has offered to buy the domain. They want me to come with a offer and I have no clue how much to ask.

So how much do you think such a domain would be worth (to them)?
You put yourself in a serious responsiblity by declaring that you have reigstered this name to make profit due to their brand already, which become a solid proof for them to take adventage of this. *Ask that to your lawyer too :)

You put yourself in a serious responsiblity by declaring that you have reigstered this name to make profit due to their brand already, which become a solid proof for them to take adventage of this. *Ask that to your lawyer too :)

"As for my domain. I did register it before the publicity, it is a common name, they you can lookup in the dictionary. It is NOT their product name, but company name. They have not used it before in this country, and the company name is not registered ant any office or official organisation (such as chamber office or trademark office). They have only done this in the US, not in my country!


I did not register the domain name to sell it. I only considered selling, once they called me and wanted to buy it."

This thread was started by Johnburk. I'm confused as to why your 1st post in this thread implies that you are him?

I'm also confused as to why your location is Nashville yet you say you say you don't live in the US.

Stu, I believe WannaBaHost is just quoting the OP. He didn't use the quote tag so it looks a bit confusing.

Vito

I don't find the bit between the " " anywhere else in this thread?

correction... it was is second post. Sorry WannaBaHost.

Am I the only person who wants to see the OPer get sued out of business for this stunt? ;)

Muzzleflash, I guess it comes down to whether the OP bought the name before or after he heard about the new product. According to him, he already had the name. So short of calling him a liar (and I see no reason to do so), we take him at his word, right?

Vito

What's the domain? :D