'CITI' domains - any TM/legal issues?

[RU]

I regged:

del logos

Do you guys think there will be any trademark ("CITI.com" is trademarked) or legal issues with owning NetworkCiti/NameCiti (dot COMs)? Any advice or opinions would be great.

P.S. (citi) docs: 300 occ: 609 (uspto.gov)

 

[Kate]

I think you are heading for trouble.
Citi is not like City. That's what makes it distinctive as a brand and TM.

Of course, you can try and see if you'll get away but is that absolutely necessary ? :imho:

 

[alien51]

I think the TM here is on the term "CITI", separate and distinct by itself with a scope of goods and services defined.

Looking at Trademarkia, there appears to be lots of other companies that use the term "CITI" in their names. But obviously, none of them dwell on anything related to financial or insurance business.

Your distinct LOGO and font styling difference, and your clearly unrelated niche, could save your neck.

 

[Ms Domainer]

*

Pure and simple, you're playing with fire.


*

 

[RU]

Brands That Citigroup Inc. Has Bullied (1995-Now)

Citigroup want to monopolise the word “City”.

citywarrants.com domain name is confusingly similar to Complainant’s CITIWARRANTS mark.

Thanks for your answers.

I canceled domains.

 

[alien51]

Brands That Citigroup Inc. Has Bullied (1995-Now)

That extensive list shows how companies with valuable brands, try to protect their assets. The action is very normal, as what you might expect for a valuable brand. The reason why people see them as "bully", is because they use their corporate billion dollars to litigate even the flimsiest issues related to their brand. (By the way, Citigroup was bailed out by the US government using taxpayer money).

But you should note that not all of their victims in that list lost their case. A considerable number were able to legitimately keep their brand.

Citigroup want to monopolise the word “City”.

Actually, the Title of the article in that link was: "Citigroup sues to get CityCard.com, a domain it won in UDRP". The article didn't say anything about attempting to monopolize the word "City". But as you can see, "citycard" is clearly confusingly similar to "citicard". Especially the word "card" makes it confusing to people whether it's a credit card. I think this is one of those easy TM issues to agree to.

citywarrants.com domain name is confusingly similar to Complainant’s CITIWARRANTS mark.

The respondent was displaying advertisements related to the financial sector. So in this example, he signed his own death warrant. No sympathies there.


Bottomline here, is that normally people stay away from trouble because of the "hassle". Unfortunately, the consequence is that we never get the chance to fully understand the full rights afforded to us by trademark laws, whether what we are doing is right or wrong. We just run away.

 

[sephirotica]

Unfortunately, the consequence is that we never get the chance to fully understand the full rights afforded to us by trademark laws, whether what we are doing is right or wrong. We just run away.

Running away, in this case might save you some crap-load of money because understanding "the full rights afforded to us by trademark laws, whether what we are doing is right or wrong" will probably cost you several thousand+ dollars in lawyer fees.

 

[alien51]

Normally, for Domainers in the buy-and-sell domains business, putting up a resistance may not be worth it. After all, there are other domains to buy-and-sell.

But it means a lot if you are an End-User. Usually, legit End-Users spend some creative amount of resources to come up with some catchy brand for their business. And then some guy bullies you just because you have the word "Face" or "Choice" in your brand which they claim to be trademarked and cannot be used by anyone else. This is seriously wrong. A brand is an "identity". It's not like domaining where you can simply jump to another domain because your main concern is earning money, and not establishing a brand.

By the way, with UDRPs, you can defend yourself at no cost to you. People who pay thousands of dollars in lawyers fees, are people who passionately believe they did nothing wrong. If your primary motive is to earn money and nothing else, your best option is just run away.