Tag Archives: cybersquatting

No, You Can’t Register a Famous Trademark

 

No, You Can’t Register a Famous Trademark as a Domain Name Just Because “It Was Available”

Yah! I know it 🙂
But here is a nice excerpt of a post that I’v found.

 

Caller: I don’t mean to be rude, but the domain name was available and I paid $10 for it, so it is mine. How can that be illegal?

Domain Name Lawyer: Why did you register the domain name?

Caller: To sell it to Coca-Cola. I came up with this awesome idea of a website all about how people love Coca-Cola, and YourCocaCola.com would be just the perfect domain name for them to launch this site. I can’t believe their marketing company didn’t come up with this themselves….Anyhow, Coca-Cola earned about 2 Billion dollars last year based upon my research, and I think that 1% of that would be a fair price and I would share what we get with you if you will help me sell it to them.

Domain Name Lawyer: I do not mean to be the bearer of bad news, but registering a famous trademark like that to sell to the trademark owner is unlawful, and you best just hand over the domain name before you get into any more trouble. Sorry I can’t help.

Caller: You mean to tell me that Godaddy lets people register illegal names? Are you sure that you are really an expert in domain names? Because I spoke to a couple people before calling you, and they all told me stories of companies paying millions of dollars to get their domain names back after they inadvertently lapsed, or because someone got to them first. So I find it really hard to believe that a big company like Godaddy would allow someone to register a domain name that was illegal.

Domain Name Lawyer: Look, I have been practising domain name law for like 12 years, and there is something called the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act that makes this kind of thing illegal.

Caller: Did you say “legal” or “illegal”?

Domain Name Lawyer: Illegal.

Read it all at http://blog.dnattorney.com/2012/01/no-you-cant-register-famous-trademark.html