Approaching Snapnames about a TM Infringement

[Spade]

Heres the situation:

Snapnames recently captured a dropped domain name that is the name of a company in the US.

That company uses for their website the same domain with a hyphen. Here is an example of what i mean (the examples below are fake):

RPF-Strong.com (Companys Site)
RPFStrong.com (Snap's catch)

The product that the company makes is displaying on advertising on the parking page that SnapNames has up. The advertising even includes ads for the company RPF-Strong.....

Its a pretty obvious and blantant TM infringement. How to approach SnapNames, if all the company wants, is the domain name?

 

[Ross]

Heres the situation:

Snapnames recently captured a dropped domain name that is the name of a company in the US.

That company uses for their website the same domain with a hyphen. Here is an example of what i mean (the examples below are fake):

RPF-Strong.com (Companys Site)
RPFStrong.com (Snap's catch)

The product that the company makes is displaying on advertising on the parking page that SnapNames has up. The advertising even includes ads for the company RPF-Strong.....

Its a pretty obvious and blantant TM infringement. How to approach SnapNames, if all the company wants, is the domain name?

I would personally alert the company that has the TM. It is that company's responsibility to protect their TradeMark. If they do nothing about it and do not actively protect their own TM they could actually lose it. I know what SnapNames is doing wrong and is infringement but if the company that has the TM does nothing then there is nothing we can do. Except maybe boycot SnapNames until they remove listings like this and not make anymore that are similar.

 

[Spade]

I would personally alert the company that has the TM. It is that company's responsibility to protect their TradeMark. If they do nothing about it and do not actively protect their own TM they could actually lose it. I know what SnapNames is doing wrong and is infringement but if the company that has the TM does nothing then there is nothing we can do. Except maybe boycot SnapNames until they remove listings like this and not make anymore that are similar.

Forgive me for not including that information. The company does want the domain name, it is a business that a family member of mine works for.

I had initially advised them to file a UDRP - however, being that the company is SnapNames - I thought perhaps there was a quicker, cheaper solution to the problem.

 

[Kate]

Send a C&D first.