GM Dispute.

[SkyMan]

To whom it may concern,

I represent an automotive group and am an acting member of the General Motors Digital Marketing Steering Committee, we currently show you are the registrant of the domain xxxxxxxx.com. We are willing to present you with an offer of $500 and bypass the lengthly process of filing a UDRP dispute. Currently the domain is being monetized through SEDO.com. As this is a Trademark of the GM corporation your unauthorized use to generate personal profit crosses the "bad faith" line. Please let us know your answer in a timely manner.


.............................

First time I've received one of these. If he isn't from GM, and is solely a dealer "acting" on behalf of GM does he still have basis? Should I take his offer?


Thanks guys!

 

[Broker]

Email address it came from?

 

[verbster]

"General Motors Digital Marketing Steering Committee" has zero hits in Google (unless he got his own committee name wrong).

Edit: Now knowing the e-mailer is a legit dealership might make a difference. They have permission to use TMs, but I wonder to what scope? I doubt they want your name just to protect GM's TM...more likely they want it for their own use. Even so, they may have GM's approval to go after it (or may not even need approval). Would a UDRP award the name to the dealer, or would it revert to GM as the holder of the Mark? Sounds like a question for Dr. Berryhill.

 

[SkyMan]

Thanks for the quick reply guys.

E-mail: tbrandt at carlblack (dot) com.

His title at the firm is "e-commerce director".

These guys are the largest GMC dealer in the US.


I do recall someone on the forum being able to create and run a website at pontiacg8.com with no issues. Wasn't parked though, which may be my issue.

 

[Ronald Regging]

It doesn't really sound like he is acting on behalf of the GM Corporation, but rather is suffering from some notion of entitlement and is hoping you'll go along with it.

Personally I'd either ignore him or reply with an email asking him if he is authorized to represent the GM Corporation on behalf of legal matters. Also, I might go a step further and inform the GM Corporation that he is doing just that... Technically, I don't think he blatantly claimed it, but he definitely implied it as a scare tactic.

Either way, I wouldn't move to action unless you can verify that the person making the offer or demand is a legal representative or authorized agent of the TM holder. Unless you want the $500...

Or you could always contact GM and offer to transfer it to them for free, since it is their TM

But realistically speaking, if they are contacting you and they are not representing GM, than they probably want that domain fairly bad. I can understand GM contacting you about any random domain utilizing their TM, because they have a responsibility to protect their TM. But if this dealership is merely acting on their own behalf, they have no real motive to protect the TM, but rather want to profit off of it themselves. And since I don't think they'd have any legal basis to file a UDRP, I'd expect they would be more than willing to at least pay the cost of doing so for the domain...

 

[Diabro]

I am not a lawyer but I would consider taking the domain off of SEDO. Of course doing that is a response to him so look up to see if this actually may hurt your situation.

Also research countering. It may be in your best interet to counter with $1,000 - $2,000.

 

[exponent]

UDRP's cost $1000+ to file. Make him at least offer you $1000.

 

[whitebark]

Simply amazing - people saying take more. Be happy they offered you what they did. They clearly know the legal procedures beforehand. Because if you counter, I suspect their next contact will be to the higher ups at GM, and they won't be offering you anything but a legal challenge.

 

[Len]

I'm with Roy on this. If you had been offered $500 by anyone else would you have been happy with the price? Being involved with the #1 GMC dealer in the US, there is every possibility that the sender of the email is a member of the General Motors Digital Marketing Steering Committee. Just because it cannot be found referenced on the internet does not mean it does not exsist. I suspect that GM may have some sort of countrywide committee that looks out for trademark infringements. If their next step is to bring this to the attention of GM then you can wave goodbye to the domain and the cash.

 

[Broker]

OP sent me the domain via pm, it is a generic work and has multiple TM's for multiple uses. The domain the OP has is not a tm issue at all.

 

[evertonian7uk]

I am a GM rep selling vehicles to the US army oversea's in Europe and Iraq,

GM WILL!! and do support the GM domains i own and i have never, ever seen an email like this from any of there people,

The email isnt very well written, nor does it contain any of the dept's i have ever dealt with,

proceed with caution, ask for proof that he is indeed working on behlaf of GM, and take it off sedo until you can establish some more detail.

I have the big three domain names and havent ever had 1 issue as i sell on behalf of them, you case may be different as its on SEDO, but find out exactly who you are dealing with, before you surrender anything

 

[SkyMan]

Thanks everyone for your comments! EXTREMELY helpful.

Ended up pulling 1k out of it... needless to say, you guys were correct...guy was a phony..the domain in question was HummerHx.com. The Hummer HX concept was recently unveiled in Detroit a week ago. I'm very happy with the outcome. As it stands, it simply links to his firm's website. I have never dealt with some so rude in my life. This guy obviously thought he was some kind of big deal!

A car salesman is a car salesman!

 

[evertonian7uk]

A car salesman is a car salesman!

Play nice now, were not all sharks, some of us are wayyyyy more ruthless than that LMAO!

 

[SkyMan]

Play nice now, were not all sharks, some of us are wayyyyy more ruthless than that LMAO!

vittorio.ca

Oh, I know the game too!