question I've owned domain for years. It was trademarked. Now trademark has dropped. What do I do?

[soopasimon]

Hi everyone

I posted on here a while ago about a domain that I have owned since 2009. I ran quite a large gaming network on it (Alexa rank inside 30k) and did pretty well with it from 2009 - 2011.

I then shut the site and held the domain ever since. In 2009, another company trademarked the name. This was not published until after I had purchased the name so they did originally try to buy it off me. I said 'no' and that was that. I did not realize how big this company was and was doing okay myself.

In 2012 this company floated, and then was sold into what is now known as gameforge (this domain is frogster.com). They bought the frogster company for $60m USD. Take a look at the history, it's massive. It was a big deal in the gaming industry, and many well known games are still floating about under the company name.

When I found all this out I flirted with the idea of selling it but the trademark basically put a stop to everything. It's highly brandable, the .com, and has been trademarked a few times before under different guises.

Now's the kicker. The trademark's have now all dropped - in the last couple of days. The reports are up and now the domain is completely trademark free. I would like to sell the name but unsure as to how to go about it. Can someone please advise on how I could get a quick sale, and whether now is a good time?

Thanks

 

[soopasimon]

Thanks for your insight.

That's pretty much what I was thinking. The value to me was in my own business, and the domain itself was trademarked so I could not do anything with it.

Now it's really the brand factor that is going for it. As you say it does stand out a bit, probably because it's an animal many find 'cute' (I dont!) with the word 'ster' after it, which has always been kind of trendy online. Plus the fact that its had several trademarks over the years show that it's a good 'non dictionary' name.

A new gaming site may gain inherent prestige and a bit of a leg up getting this name, but the changes of a new gaming site going up is pretty slim.

The brand factor is where the value is I think. I'll just offload it as it's 'dead wood' to me (as we say in the UK if anyone is not familiar with the term) - just hanging around doing nothing!

Not expecting loads but I'd hope to get low $x,xxx