Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Domain Names : domain claim from DR

[Dave - Just199]

We have a client that has a domain name that a business in the Dominican Republic is saying they should own. This is a .com extension and my stance is that as a dominican republic registered company without any trademark they have no claim to .com extensions.

Does anyone have any literature/information regarding this?

[netearth]

Basically if they believe they have any sort of claim or dispute in the USA for this given domain, tell them to file with www.wipo.int, money talks, B**lsh*t walks.

They will have to pay a lawyer (or have a darn good idea) to draw up all the paperwork and then pay some more.

Always best to advise a customer to get a lawyers stance, this way there is never any comeback on you

[Dave - Just199]

They did lawyer up, I refused to reveal the customers identity.

I passed the email to the customer.

They couldn't provide a Valid Trademark registration number. Their lawyer did cite WIPO but I think he just googled it to find something that looked credible.

My last line was
Once again we are asking for an International Trademark Registration number, our abuse team requires that you provide us with proper documentation prior to any action on our part. You are welcome to file a UDRP claim with ICANN and we will respond directly to them however we will not be releasing any private information without a court order.

[netearth]

At no point should any information (as you have done and said) be given to anyone until ICANN and WIPO are involved, a Lawyer can sit there and moan as much as he wants and send as many letters as they want.

Also, make sure you get everything they want in writing by letter (signed for) or by fax on their letterhead.

Please understand, if your customer has been silly enough to register something say like viagra.com, just hand the domain over as by the time you or the customer start to fight it, WIPO will be involved and something as well known like that would mean you loose. BUT, if it is not well known or doesn't have an implied copyright by use, then yeah, sit back and wait for them to get UDRP initiated. At that point it would be taken out of your hands anyway.

Registrar has to lock domain, and block any transfer attempt until the WIPO proceedings have gone through, at which time, your registrar, will tell you/customer whats what.

Chris