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From: Woody on 29 Jun 2010 16:00
Mike Edwards <mike.edwards(a)mjeonline.co.uk> wrote:

> I have heard that there are various domain registry processes I can
> pursue but wondered if anyone had any experience of them or whether
> there were any other avenues I could try bearing in mind that their
> financial resources far exceed mine.

Yes, I have had experiences of the domain name complaints process. It is
slow, pointless and very very frustrating.

--
Woody

www.alienrat.com
From: Richard Tobin on 29 Jun 2010 16:31
In article <mike.edwards-4D7AEB.20451729062010(a)news.demon.co.uk>,
Mike Edwards <mike.edwards(a)mjeonline.co.uk> wrote:

>I have written to them and complained but they have essentially told me
>to get loss and that nobody could confuse the two. I get plenty of their
>mail incorrectly addressed to my domains but I wanted to protect my
>original use of the domain.

Consult a lawyer.

From my little knowledge of the subject, I doubt you have any grounds
to stop them. Trademark law might prevent them from using the name
for a related product, but that's to stop them taking advantage of
your good name, rather than to address the fact that people make
mistakes in email addresses. It's like having a phone number similar
to that of a taxi company, which is very annoying but probably not a
basis for legal action.

>Ideally I would like to force them to change their name on the grounds
>that they had prior knowledge that it was already in use and chose to go
>ahead anyway.

But it wasn't in use. You foo.co.uk and foo.org are different domains.
If you wanted both, you should have registered both.

Of course, it may well be inconvenient for them too. They will be
losing mail just as you are, and probably a lot more of it. Your best
bet might be to ask them to pay the costs of you changing your domain
name, which are likely to be less than the costs of them changing
theirs.

But before you do that or anything else, consult a lawyer.

-- Richard
From: Kit on 1 Jul 2010 06:25
In article <mike.edwards-4D7AEB.20451729062010(a)news.demon.co.uk>, Mike
Edwards <mike.edwards(a)mjeonline.co.uk> wrote:

> Back in May 2005 I registered a domain name I wanted to use for an
> online payments system to provide a single point of payment processing
> for various other domains I had. I registered the .co.uk and the .net
> variants.
>
> In January 2008 a large industry body chose to register the .org variant
> of my domain name and in July 2009 they rebranded their entire
> organisation to be the same name as my domain name.
>
> I have written to them and complained but they have essentially told me
> to get loss and that nobody could confuse the two. I get plenty of their
> mail incorrectly addressed to my domains but I wanted to protect my
> original use of the domain.
>
> Ideally I would like to force them to change their name on the grounds
> that they had prior knowledge that it was already in use and chose to go
> ahead anyway.

As has already been mentioned, you might be able to approach this from
a Trade Mark angle.

Can your domain name be registered as a Trade Mark?

If you get the TM and if they are involved in the same sort of business
as you are then you can prevent them from using any version (.org, .uk,
..con, etc) of the domain name for that business. Even if their actual
business was carried out under a different name (e.g. Fred Bloggs Ltd)
than their web domain (e.g. nokia.com) it would be a breach of the
nokia TM if they carried on any business with that domain name.

Also, if they have a domain name with your TM then it is common
practice (and usually succeeds) for a TM owner to demand that an
infringing domain name be given up.

Kit
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