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ProDomanico

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Received a query from xoom
what is the best approach to tackle this? what do you think?
writing to you concerning your use of the domain name X /O/O /M /W /I /R/ E/ . COM containing the XOOM mark, in which xxx owns well-established trademark rights.

XOOM -- is a trademark, will that make all words with XOOM combination infringment

has learned of your use of the domain name x/o/m/wire./com. We note that this website references goods and/or services which appear related to those XOOM offers. As you might expect, xxx is quite concerned about this use of the XOOM mark as part of a domain name.

Any idea what to do ? XOOM Mark is registered but not wire .. and wire is a great keyword..
 
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AfternicAfternic
Hello ProDomainico,

We have moved this Post to it's own thread here in Legal.
You'll get better answers here.

Peace,
Kenny
 
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I'l start as we mostly do on NP by saying "I am not a lawyer". Xoom dot com is owned by Paypal and trademarked as a money processing operation. Their Xoom domain is administered by Mark Monitor, which is why you heard so speedily about your domain, which appears registered just a few weeks ago.

I like the term "wire" and have a few news oriented names myself as it can be used in that sense. But since the term "wire" is often also used to mean a money transfer, I think you can see why Xoom/Paypal would be concerned about your domain. I think the TM holder would easily win the "confusingly similar" argument.

If you want to retain this domain, then you'd be best to consult a domain/TM lawyer. In all honesty, it it was mine, I would just cancel it.
 
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and wire is a great keyword

Yeah. It's a great keyword for money transfers, which happens to be the business that Xoom is in, and the letters "XOOM" have no 'generic' meaning than as a reference to their well-known money transfer service.

This is a common theme here at Namepros:

"I have McDonaldsHamburgers.com. I see there is a trademark on 'McDonalds', but not for McDonaldsHamburgers." Do you see a problem with the thinking there?

Here's an interesting experiment - do a Google search on 'xoomwire', see what you come up with, and try to imagine arguing that 'xoomwire' has nothing to do with a well-established wire transfer service called Xoom.
 
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Yeah. It's a great keyword for money transfers, which happens to be the business that Xoom is in, and the letters "XOOM" have no 'generic' meaning than as a reference to their well-known money transfer service.

This is a common theme here at Namepros:

"I have McDonaldsHamburgers.com. I see there is a trademark on 'McDonalds', but not for McDonaldsHamburgers." Do you see a problem with the thinking there?

Here's an interesting experiment - do a Google search on 'xoomwire', see what you come up with, and try to imagine arguing that 'xoomwire' has nothing to do with a well-established wire transfer service called Xoom.
Thank you
I see they have a UDRP on Xoomwallet earlier where the owner of the site has been running business on it.
They won the UDRP
But in my case I am just a domainer not running any business on it.
 
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Thank you
I see they have a UDRP on Xoomwallet earlier where the owner of the site has been running business on it.
They won the UDRP
But in my case I am just a domainer not running any business on it.
(bolded by me)
Then what do you intend to do with the domain if you don't plan on developing it?

Peace,
Kenny
 
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Better you sell the domain X /O/O /M /W /I /R/ E/ . COM name to themselves and get rid of the issues.
 
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We note that this website references goods and/or services which appear related to those XOOM offers

I'm also not a lawyer, but from what I learned on this topic, this is the critical point - whether what you do with domain interferes with their business.

If you plan to produce and sell barbed wire on that site, I'd say you can get away with it. But if you plan just to sell the domain, as you seem to do, then you stand no chance, and better listen to the advices above - as already explained, xoom has no other generic meaning, so you clearly want to profit from their brand.
 
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whether what you do with domain interferes with their business.

If you plan to produce and sell barbed wire on that site, I'd say you can get away with it.

And here, we come to the critical point that not all trademarks are of equal strength and scope. For example, if we are talking about Coca-Cola-Shoes.com, it really doesn't matter whether or not Coca-Cola is in the shoe business. It is a famous and well-known mark.

Other marks, while perhaps not as well known, are also particularly distinctive because they are made-up words with no meaning other than as a reference to the mark. Now, there too, there could be remarkable circumstances in which different people come up with the same term in different far-flung places to refer to different things (or even with more 'suggestive' type marks, even similar things).

But it would be difficult to believe, without substantial evidence and more than a flimsy explanation, that someone just happened to come across this name for a business selling wire of any sort. Could it happen? Sure. But what some folks believe to be 'credible' does often vary with the amount of evidence one is able to produce.

There was, for example, a recent thread in which someone proposed to pretend to be in the cattle business in order to manufacture an excuse for having registered a domain name.

But, again, it is going to depend on the degree of distinctiveness of the mark, and/or the degree of fame of the mark.

For example in this recent case of mine:

modz.com
http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/search/text.jsp?case=D2017-2008

It is perfectly obvious that, whatever may be the strength of the pre-existing French trademark for 'MODZ' for retail clothing sales, the Respondent was able to demonstrate that (a) 'modz' has a direct and well-known meaning in gaming and software, and (b) the Respondent had made a substantial investment in developing and launching a retail gaming console "modz" site. This wasn't done by simply saying "Oh, um, yeah, I was thinking about doing something with gaming mods", but by (a) showing many examples of the generic use of 'modz' and (b) showing actual records of that business and the site history from Screenshots.com. Additionally, the later PPC use of the domain name has been consistent with the meaning of the word, and not to retail clothing sales in France.

Sometimes, things are even more bleedingly obvious that that. For example, in this recent case of mine:

http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/search/text.jsp?case=D2017-1930

There is no question that "LOAMS" would be a distinctive trademark for petroleum product testing equipment. It is also true that 'loams', as generic term, would refer to different types of soil based on decomposed plant matter.

But what we had here was the domain name loams.com which (a) has consistently been parked in association with the subject of loans and lending, and (b) was part of a portfolio of domain names consisting of mis-spelled financial terms.

So the question becomes one of, "What do you think this guy is up to? Is he trying to exploit an obscure manufacturer of specialized industrial scientific equipment, or is he trying to exploit the fact that 'n' and 'm' are next to each other on a keyboard, and people looking for loans often type 'loams.com'?

I mean, seriously, the loams.com thing was pretty obvious on a moment's look at the facts.

But if you have something like quickemloans.com, and you are trying to say "I wasn't trying to ripoff Quicken Loans, I was intending to provide a resource for quick European market loans!" no one is going to believe you. And by that I mean, without concrete evidence of some kind which does not appear to be manufactured for the purpose of the dispute, nobody is going to believe you even if you are telling the truth.

And that last category is where this one falls. Xoom is a completely fanciful, although not entirely unique mark. 'Xoom' was also adopted as a mark by Motorola for a device. In fact, I had been involved in the sale of Xoom.com quite a number of years ago, to a cable company which used it for a since-failed service. It was a hand-registered domain name by a domainer who liked it because of its suggestive appeal as a homonym for "zoom". As things turned out, this was years before the cable company decided they wanted to use it as a mark for their service.

This is not that. They are in the wire transfer business, and the idea that 'Xoomwire' was intended as some sort of speedy electronic cable or fencing supply business would require remarkably substantial evidence to back that up.

But for the purposes of Namepros, these questions tend to be posed in the context of domain names which have been speculatively registered, and one has to then consider what the market demand might be among prospective sellers of wire to even adopt such a name; as compared to what appears to be a direct reference to the service of a well known wire transfer provider.

UDRP Panelists who have given these types of circumstances some thought will often distinguish such a name as having "no conceivable good faith use". I would suggest the word "substantial" be included in there, to cut down on the more fanciful defenses which are sometimes taken out for a spin in these things.
 
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