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I have a friend who launched a business and obtained a Trademark from the USPTO for the spelling of the business name and a typo of the name. He owns the domain for the correct spelling, but not the incorrect spelling. Upon searching a WHOIS record for the domain typo, it shows that it was registered two days after the Trademark approval from the USPTO. The price it is listed for is not a huge sum, but not a small amount either. It's the amount that a business will say "this stings, but let's just pay it and be done with it".
I advised my friend to take this to ICANN because he owns the trademark for the name and therefore shouldn't have to pay a five figure sum for a 2 month old domain that was never registered before. He is thinking about just paying it and being done with it.
I understand the quick solution to this is to pay the seller and move on, but how long does the dispute resolution take with ICANN if you have the proof that you own the trademark prior to the domain registration and the seller (likely) just scraped the USPTO database and cross checked it against unregistered .com names to flip the names to the proper trademark owner?
I advised my friend to take this to ICANN because he owns the trademark for the name and therefore shouldn't have to pay a five figure sum for a 2 month old domain that was never registered before. He is thinking about just paying it and being done with it.
I understand the quick solution to this is to pay the seller and move on, but how long does the dispute resolution take with ICANN if you have the proof that you own the trademark prior to the domain registration and the seller (likely) just scraped the USPTO database and cross checked it against unregistered .com names to flip the names to the proper trademark owner?