Swapnames.com lawsuit

[jsp]

If not posted already, received this email from SwapNames.com. apparently they will be forced to change their domain name:

"My name is Koay Al Vin and I am the president of SwapNames.com. Please allow me to make a very important announcement regarding SwapNames.com and your SwapName member's account. On the 8th of August 2007, SwapNames Inc. was slapped with a trademark infringement lawsuit for using the domain name: Swapnames.com. Even tough we are absolutely certain that the allegation is baseless; we do not have the finances to hire an attorney to defend our case in court. As far as we know, a descriptive and generic phrase such as "swap names" cannot be infringing in anyway. However, to defend the lawsuit will certainly bankrupt our company, just from the hefty legal expenses. As a very new start-up venture with no financial backing, it is a huge blow to our dreams. We will have to surrender our most valuable property which is our domain name, to avoid a default judgement by the court. SwapNames.com will cease using it's domain name on Thursday, 4th October 2007. We will be relaunching a new website using the domain name www.Zuho.com immediately thereafter. The official launch date for Zuho.com will be Tuesday, 9th October 2007. Zuho.com will have all the existing features of Swapnames and a major upgraded feature which allows all members to post "wanted swap" offers. Members will also get to search all ads posted by other fellow members. This will allow you to make very targeted swap offers and increase the chances of succesful swaps. All existing data in your present Swapnames.com account will be transferred over to Zuho.com and you will not have to re-enter anything at all. Your login details to Zuho.com will also be the same as before. We would like to apologise to you for all the inconveniences and just like the phoenix which rises from the ashes, we are determined to make Zuho.com an even better domain swapping marketplace compared to Swapnames.com. Thank you very much for your understanding and Zuho.com hopes for your most valued support very soon. With warmest regards, Koay Al Vin President, Zuho Inc.

 

[domtastic]

Looks like SwapNames already have a TM on their name.

http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=6r0rvt.2.1

In which case how can another party claim infringement if the name in question is already a registered TM?

 

[Devil_Dog]

Many of us are large Snapnames customers. /]this page[/URL]

Not anymore. After seeing this and the fishy bidding going on, I'm done with them.

I hope John Berryhill or Ari Goldberger or one of those lawyers steps in to help this guy. I will contribute toward a fund for his defense if needbe.

 

[Pred]

Not anymore. After seeing this and the fishy bidding going on, I'm done with them.

I hope John Berryhill or Ari Goldberger or one of those lawyers steps in to help this guy. I will contribute toward a fund for his defense if needbe.

well said. i'm with you Devil Dog
nb: so it is definitely snapnames?

 

[Name Trader]

It is interesting that Snap chose to go with a trademark infringement lawsuit rather than UDRP. Perhaps they knew they would lose the UDRP, or maybe they were just betting that Swap couldn't afford to defend a lawsuit (much more expensive than defending against UDRP). Also, Snap filed the lawsuit in Portland, Oregon, which would surely be expensive for holdem8 in Malaysia (judging by whois) to deal with.

Agree entirely with this. This is a BS lawsuit. Reverse hijacking of the worst kind. The news media
would be interested in this story. I'd also suggest a domain lawyer like BerryHill or Goldberger. But it's probably too late now. SnapNames only needs to present the lawsuit filing to GoDaddy to get the domain suspended.

 

[jsp]

Found the court filing here:
http://dockets.justia.com/docket/court-ordce/case_no-3:2007cv01178/case_id-84591/

so it was SnapNames.Com, Inc. v. SwapNames, Incorporated

 

[Pred]

Thanks. If the owner of site is reading, do not give up.
Also as a community we should boycott snapnames. I will finish my first and last auction this week, then no more. They're screwed if a lot of us join in.

Another lesson is never have importnat domains at godaddy for the reasons aforementioned. Use Moniker.

 

[Earthian]

just because a lawsuit was filed , it does not mean that a decision has been reached ... therefore GoDaddy cannot cancel the domain ... they might freeze it , if SnapNames contacts them about the lawsuit , but they cannot cancel it until they receive a court order ...

​

 

[Pred]

true, but there are 2 other nasties.
godaddy charge you a fee, win orlose for them having to impound it!
second, think they take the site down by way of disfunctioning and freezing domain.
bit like guilty before proven innocent if you will.

 

[Earthian]

I understand your concern , but it is not certain that they will take the site down ... usually they do that if there is a security issue or urgent matter (eg. like in the case were some passwords were posted on a site/forum , I think without the webmaster's knowledge)


furthermore , being in the domain business , they can probably see that the domains are different ... they can understand the meaning of swapping domains ... and they might even have seen the site since it is the only one for swapping names and it might have fallen to the attention of the person that would "push the button" to freeze the domain ...


moreover , we don't know whether SnapNames has notified GoDaddy yet (esp. since they know they are overstreching , logically knowing about the SwapNames.com TM) ... so they might be going slow because they might not want to attract public's/domainers' attention or "expose" themselves to GoDaddy for a rather frivolous claim ...








I think will all the attention this will get ... filing a lawsuit (and not a UDRP) to a Trademark holder for a Domain name that is consisted of two generic words that have specific meaning and function (swappimg domains) and while the site is already developed ????? ... they will just withdraw the lawsuit if it gets public enough ... they surely don't want to irritate all the domainers in the world , do they ??? ... :lol:

​

 

[Mobi Cheap]

man, that really really sucks- now i really hope network solutions opens their site and drops snapnames like the bad piece of smelly fish that it is- providing it was snapnames that came after him-

Done. Well, almost - I know the news has been all over the domain blogospehere but somehow I feel you would enjoy the way this particular article puts it.

 

[Dave_Z]

Defend your name.
You will win.

That's for the judge to decide, not us.

On the face of it, this does seem to be your proverbial David vs. Goliath thing.
However, there are a few considerations to make here.

Both SwapNames and SnapNames arguably cut too close to one another both
in appearance and in sound. Additionally, SnapNames has been in the domain
market obviously longer than SwapNames and has considerably built a lot of
goodwill to its name.

I certainly can understand Koay Al Vin's desire to choose this name because it
does "somewhat" reflect what this service offers: swapping names. But there
is one tiny catch:

http://www.swapnames.com/about_us.aspx

SwapNames.com is an online marketplace for domain name owners to actively swap, buy or sell their domain names or web sites. Domain owners can actively search out domains that are of interest, offer their own domains in their portfolio as well as receive swap offers from other domain owners.

They might have a chance if they didn't offer that kind of service. But since it
does, coupled with using a name that's rather close to SnapNames' trademark,
well...

 

[AussieDomainer]

My SnapNames rep tried to call me this afternoon but I was in a meeting and had my mobile off. Therefore I'm going to call them back tomorrow morning and will be advising them that they will no longer have my business due to the action they have chosen to take in regards to SwapNames. Will be interesting to see what he says.

 

[lzy]

My SnapNames rep tried to call me this afternoon but I was in a meeting and had my mobile off. Therefore I'm going to call them back tomorrow morning and will be advising them that they will no longer have my business due to the action they have chosen to take in regards to SwapNames. Will be interesting to see what he says.

Keep us updated. Hope enough domainers do this to let them realize what a huge mistake they're making!

 

[owntype]

Don't give up! I second all the posts in this thread.

 

[billinchina]

Someone should register for PACER to view the case summary and look for some more info regarding this:
https://ecf.ord.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/qrySummary.pl?84591

I wish SnapNames would explain their reasoning publicly. It's not fair to lynch them without hearing them out. What if swapnames has another snapnames typo that they are mad about? We don't know all the details. If they are indeed being a bully, someone should ask Oversee (or DomainSponsor) about it at T.R.A.F.F.I.C. East. They might have a good explanation. If they don't, then it comes as an embarassment to the domain industry that it would turn on itself like this. If we can't even be friends amongst ourselves, then what kind of people are we?

 

[DotWeekly]

I spoke with Al this morning, and he is well aware of this thread, but he does not want to post due to the Legal Reasons, which I understand.

From my understanding SwapNames.com would need a $50,000 deposit for the lawyer, and total costs would be approx $200,000 - $300,000 in legal fees!

There is NO other domain that SwapNames.com owns that is in dispute, it is Only the SwapNames.com domain Name.

Again, SnapNames (IMO) is being a bully and are solely doing this because of the W and the N, which I do not see in any way to be a Typo. Swap and Snap are two totally different words, and if somebody "Mixes" them up, I would not understand it!

 

[Alex]

Maybe we should enforce Snap with all our methods to abandon this lawsuit.

Is there a good petition site? I think somebody (with a very good command of English) shoudl formulate a well written petition, and then I will help to distribute it to as many domain channels as possible.

We need some advocacy campaign here (and that is my day job basically). I understand holdem8 that he does not want to post here, but I as a domainer feel offended by another domainer oriented site treating domainers in such a way.

Alex

 

[HcDomains]

What Snapnames did is totally unreasonable in this case...

Hope Snapnames would pay me my account balance in time (30 days as TOS) and I would stop have business with them after that

 

[qO_Op]

What happens if they take the name and use it for exactly the same idea (swapping domain names)?

SnapNames releases SwapNames (new cool site!)

 

[randomo]

If the OP wants to use my NameSwap-dot-net domain, I'll give it to him. (The dot-com is just a parking page.)

 

[owntype]

Snapnames.com owns SnapnamesSucks.com and F U C K Snapnames.com, so they don't care our fair opinions :td:

 

[IAmAllanShore]

I'm not sure if it counts as "ironic" that snapnames (The same company that has recently auctioned such gems as "macrosoft.com" and "aaroncarter.com" - just two easy examples; you can choose from among thousands of similar...) has apparently filed a TM infringement suit... If anyone needs something from Pacer just PM me (There is an .08 per page fee, but I'll eat that so long as we aren't talking 'novels' here ).
-Allan :gl:

 

[kev]

Sorry to hear this :td:

Swapnames was a nice wee site and to have the name taken from them from Snapnames is an utter joke

Wouldn't put it past Snapnames to release SwapNames themselves...

 

[deb]

its an unfortunate situation, but i wont be cancelling my snapnames account. they are the leading backorder site and too valuable to stop dealing with if your a serious domainer.(they will have thier own problems with namejet.com)

 

[Pred]

its an unfortunate situation, but i wont be cancelling my snapnames account. they are the leading backorder site and too valuable to stop dealing with if your a serious domainer.(they will have thier own problems with namejet.com)

Many of us are serious Domainers Deb.
Of course it is your call what you do, but in your signature it says 'Domain Philanthropy'

Never been a better time to display that and principles imo, for all of us.

I was in an auction been involved in for couple of days & let it go tonight & cancelled 2 backorders.
My view is at least take a break for a while so they get the message.
Far more important to stand together as a community over this.
Just my opinion but many are feeling same way.
I just cant imagine buying a name, building a business, tming it , then a bully comes along and takes off me knowing cant legally afford to challenge him.