trademark +1 for DropCatch Department

[Chris Hydrick]

Recently, some of yall may have noticed Pinterest.Net being auctioned at DropCatch.com. This auction has since been cancelled.

I believe anyone who bid on the auction may have received the below email.

Note, there were several $59 bids, and to me, my assumption would be a majority of those bids were "tracking bids" where a bidder was more so curious to watch the auction, rather than bid with intent to win a trademarked domain.

Regardless, DropCatch legal department stepped up, and did what I believe is the right thing. They protected the integrity of the domain industry by refusing to auction a trademarked domain, and more importantly protected their customers legal interest by not allowing them to win an auction where legal ramification may follow. Well done @Rebies & @Jeff Reberry

I for one am thrilled to see DropCatch cancel this auction. This appears to be a major move in the right direction. In November 2017, I created a thread titled, Selling domains containing 'google' HERE, where as noted in the below quote, DropCatch was featuring a domain containing the google on their home page.

There is even a live 'google' domain for sale on DropCatch home page...

Is it legally OK for DropCatch to sell GoogleWhack.com? Is it legally OK to bid on GoogleWhack.com?

 

[wwwweb]

It could cause legal issues for Dropcatch from the winner also.

 

[Chris Hydrick]

It could cause legal issues for Dropcatch from the winner also.

How so?

And funny you (to me) that say that. I had originally included a reference to that, but edited it out, because I was unsure of the applicability after reading the below statement from the email they sent regarding this auction cancellation.

Please remember that as a DropCatch.com customer you are always solely responsible for conducting your own research regarding any legal consequences that may result in bidding on or purchasing any domains through our service and we are not liable for any legal issues you may be faced with your acquisition of a domain.

Does disclaimers such of that fully protect their own exposure?

 

[offthehandle]

Does disclaimers such of that fully protect their own exposure?

I am not a lawyer, that's my disclaimer before I write this. Lol.
I would imagine DC simply transfers the name they caught over to the P corp as good will.

Disclaimers are important CYA material. Just like the TOS that nobody reads with each piece of software they install or website or service they use. However, generally speaking I think you will find that Lawyers if interesting in pursuing something can always find an angle from either side to argue most cases that even common sense says otherwise. That's why the court system is so backlogged.

The UDRP process is really a great thing for all parties, it streamlines things and handles a dispute similar to formal civil action, and much lower cost. No court appearance and travel time, limit to the total words included in the filing documents, etc.

For example, imagine a world where there were no UDRP's, and say you owned a nice LLL.com. Then some huge multinational was just created by a group of mergers/acquisitions and now they wanted it- "just because" they first letter of the combined companies were the 3 merged companies initials. Then, they made you subject to a Frivolous TM Lawsuit instead and some large team of lawyers hauled you into court to steal your LLL.com because those 3 letters were their business name? Unless you were really wealthy, they could easily bankrupt you and drag it out in discovery and all the other crazy legal gaming tactics. The venue, the travel, the hourly rates to defend yourself would be really high. Like what John mentioned about the 20K expenses in the other thread chasing after someone who stole 40K.