domain Yesterday was a TM day... (diablo1.net, treofaq.com, jordache.net)

[Rob J]

So I usually try to steer clear of TM names, but I don't know what happened yesterday. I saw these dropping from auction and picked em up.

diablo1.net
I picked this one up partly because i love Diablo and partly because there has been some Diablo 3 speculation lately. Diablo 1 was popular, Diablo 2 was huge, Diablo 3 will be a monster. I just read a story linked over in the industry news forum about Blizzard "aquiring" diablo3.com, now I think i'm pretty safe as I don't see them coming after me for the .net version of a 10+ year old game.

treofaq.com
Well, I have a treo, so I have some knowledge of the product and thought I could throw together an info site. I don't know about the TM issues though, IANAL but I think i'm fairly safe...

jordache.net
Why did I pick up an exact registered trademark for the bluejean fad of the 80's? I don't know, someone had to I guess, but i'd prefer zubas.net . This one worries me the most, maybe I can sell it to Jordache.com for a few hundred $ (much less than the legal fees of "aquiring" it).

wowguilds.net
I'm kind of excited about this one. I've spent (wasted) years of my life in world of warcraft. Fans love their guilds, and while there are guild portals there's not really a good guild index. I'm on it...

 

[NameCharger]

regfee to (-$400,000)

IMO, bad faith registration would be extremely easy for the TM holders to establish since you blatantly posted you know the names are TM'd but you regged them anyways.

& the -$400,000 figure comes from the potential $100k that each TM holder could collect in damages x 4 TM holders.

Realistically, fan sites where you collect no revenue might fly under the radar, but the 30+ year old jean company domain where the .com is developed by the TM holder is one I'd discard pronto mate.

 

[Rob J]

Well, come on. The only one I really see a problem is is the Jordache one, which is pretty blatant, and maybe... maybe the diablo one, but that's a stretch. But even then, the thing is establishing bad faith and suing me costs money, it costs much more than they'd ever get from me. It seems more likely they'd just demand the name, and i'd comply, and that would be that i'll lose $8.

Is jordache a bad faith reg? Yep. I'll admit it straight up, its their TM exactly, no ifs, ands or buts about it. Bad faith reg all the way, I don't know what i'm going to do about it yet.

Is diablo1 a bad faith reg? No. The game is over 10 years old, and I am legitimately a diablo fan. That doesn't mean it's not a TM violation, but comeon there are 1,420,000 sites with "diablo" in the url.

wowguilds.net, same as above. First off, I doubt anyone could ever TM "wow", and if they did then just wow, seriously. Second, I am legitimately a wow fan, and intend to develop the domain as a wow fan site. amd all indications are that Blizzard appreciate fan sites (monetized or not). Also "wow' in the url has only 12,000,000 competing sites for that lawsuit. If wowsucks.com is protected why wouldn't wowguilds.net be?

Treofaq i'm kind of neutral on.

I'm new to this, as I mentioned I usually steer way clear of TM's but this day I was just browsing and these names that all legitimately interest me (with the exception of jordache, which is just an unexplainable anomaly) popped up and I grabbed em.

Thanks namecharger, I appreciate youre feedback and i'd probably concur if I didn't already feel a connection to these future sites (minus jordache of course, jesus why'd i reg that?) . I don't agree with your bad faith assessment, I do agree that I probably shouldn't have posted about them. Alas, it's a saturday night and my judgement is impaired.