Dear Temi, It completely depends on the name. A trademark lawyer would be a good start. I can recommend a few if you'd like. If you want an off-the-cuff opinion for free, let me know, because I was also a trademark lawyer once and my opinions may well be worth free. However, I would caution against saying much more publicly on this list because your statements here are not privileged communications and are discoverable. In other words, if you say anything unwittingly against your interests, it could be used against you later by a plaintiff football club.
Sincerely, Cameron Powell VP of Business Development and General Counsel SnapNames 115 NW First Avenue Suite 300 Portland, OR 97209 (503) 219-9990 x229 (503) 274-9749 fax [EMAIL PROTECTED] Connecting Registrars and their Customers to the Secondary Market in Domain Names -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, October 29, 2001 11:39 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: .info dispute? Yes, re the sunrise period. This doesn't prevent someone from doing so at any time in the future. there are some decent sites about intellectual property, copyrights etc. out there. search at google.com under domain name disputes. Consider hiring a lawyer if the name is important. It's a complex issue with the UDRP (resolution process) often weighing in favour or trademark owners. If you plan to own domain names, i recommend you doing lots of research on the general laws, and examine previous court cases. I think the .info folks blocked a bunch of country/city names from reservation, holding them for the governments of those places.. Likely yours wasn't. Swerve ~ Know your rights. The Clash. > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 13:18 +0000 > To: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: .info dispute? > > Dear all, > I just received a letter from a representative of a company asking that I > relinquish a .info domain I registered during the start up period, the letter > claimed that the domain is the intellectual property of a certain football > club. > > Wasn't the sunrise period specifically set aside for such companies to > register such claims? The name in question happens to be the name of a town, > lets call the town opensrs, I registered the name: opensrs.info, the football > club is called opensrs football club. I do not think this football club has > any more right to this name than I or any business or individual who live or > trade in this town. If I had registered opensrsfootballclub.info or a variant > that explicitly points to this football club I think they will have a good > case. > > I do not intend to give this domain up without a fight, the football club in > question is very rich, does my David have a fighting chance against this > Goliath? Suggestions and advice welcome. > > Thanks > Temi > > > > > >
