G.me now registered to brand protection company.

The whois record for the domain name G.me recently changed to DNStination Inc., which is the proxy service for brand protection company Mark Monitor:

The change was just triggered on DomainTools yesterday, although the record shows it was altered on April 20.

The domain name was previously a registry reserved domain name.

Although nothing is definitive, there’s a good possibility that Google is the new owner. Google uses Mark Monitor for some of its domain name registrations. Given Mark Monitor’s need to avoid conflict of interest amongst clients, at a minimum I’d assume that Google was aware of any transaction for G.me.

There’s also a Google Chrome extension called G+Me.

Tags: dnstinations, g.me, google, mark monitor

Received yesterday…

Subject: Website Purchase Inquiry

Hi,

I am interested in setting up a new blogging website on your domain name.

My name is Adam and I located your contact information through a domain look up and I understand that you are the owner of DNW.com. I’ve been working in establishing a number of high quality websites for quite some time and think that your domain name fits in perfectly with the blog!

In my current situation, I would like to set up a new blogging site and conducted several site searches relating to my niche.

I decided to contact you after finding out that your domain is not one which is highly active at the moment. Obviously I would provide you some compensation for the exchange, so If you are willing to sell your domain name please let me know what sort of price range you would be willing to sell for and we can discuss further.

Furthermore since this is our first time to do business, I can easily set up an escrow service to ensure a safer business transaction for both of us if you would prefer.

Again, feel free to contact me through my email address if you would like to discuss.

Sincerely,
Adam Daniels
Zoom-IT

File sharing company files IP lawsuit over trademarks.

BitTorrent (and especially its users) are familiar with intellectual property lawsuits. But usually they’re on the receiving end.

Now the tables are turned. BitTorrent, Inc. has filed a federal lawsuit in California against BitTorrent Marketing GMBH for trademark infringement and cybersquatting.

According to BitTorrent, Inc. founder Bram Cohen, he first became aware of the defendant when it contacted him in 2003 and asked for permission to register the Bittorrent.de domain name. Cohen refused. The defendant went ahead and registered a lot of related domain names (including the .de domain) and managed to secure trademark registrations for the BitTorrent mark in Germany and Europe. When BitTorrent, Inc. tried to get its own trademarks in Europe, the defendant filed a petition to oppose BitTorrent, Inc’s trademark applications.

BitTorrent, Inc initiated litigation in Germany against BitTorrent Marketing GMBH in 2010. Now BitTorrent is bringing a case against the firm in the U.S.

According to Cohen’s lawsuit, the German company has registered hundreds of domain names that include “Bittorent”, such as the typo bitorrent.com, bittorrent.net, and bittorrent.de.

BitTorrent, Inc also says that the defendant has a history of bad activity in file sharing. It alleges the defendant has tried to usurp trademarks owned by other file sharing companies such as Kazaa and Morpheus.

Cohen’s company is suing for federal trademark infringement and cybersquatting, among other claims. On the cybersquatting claims it is asking for $100,000 per infringing domain name. Both the defendant and the respondent have filed cybersquatting claims in the past, but not against each other.

You can read the lawsuit here (large PDF).

Tags: bittorrent, bittorrent lawsuit

Don’t forget to prove earlier rights if you claim them.

Publisher Hidden Values has lost a dispute over the domain name TriangleKidsDirectory.com.

Hidden Values publishes the Kids’ Directory. It also has a registered trademark for KID’S DIRECTORY.

It’s an admittedly weak mark. It’s even a concurrent use registration that is limited in geographic scope.

But, the registrant of the domain name was a former licensee of Kids Directory and published the directory in the North Carolina “triangle”. And he didn’t respond to the dispute. So the odds were tipped in Hidden Values’ favor.

Regardless of what you think of the merits of this case and if UDRP is the proper venue for it, the case seems to have come down to when Hidden Values got trademark rights in “Kid’s Directory”. And this is where the company screwed up.

Hidden Values’ complaint mentions that it started using the mark in 1990. That’s the first-use-in-commerce date on its trademark application. But the trademark application wasn’t filed until 2005, after the respondent registered the TriangleKidsDirectory.com domain name. It should have been easy for the lawyer to show some common law rights previous to 2005 that would have been acceptable to the panel, but he dropped the ball:

“In the instant proceeding, Complainant has provided no documentary or other evidence to support the date of first use in Commerce referenced in its trademark application. This Panel therefore finds there to be a lack of evidentiary basis by which it might reasonably conclude that Complainant held rights in the KID’S DIRECTORY trademark prior to the May 12, 1995 [sic] date on which Respondent registered the disputed domain name.”

Had the company’s lawyer provided what should have been easy proof, I bet the company wins this case.

Tags: udrp

Every blog is supposed to write about the IPO

I’ve got to write one, right?

If religious blogs find a way to cover an IPO then a domain blog should, too.

I actually have a bit of a domain angle. This morning I googled FacebookIPO.com because I recall seeing something about the domain previously. Here’s the first result:

Facebook-IPO.com has no content whatsoever. Google still cares about exact match domain searches, even if it’s on a really esoteric search. I suspect some people will type FacebookIPO.com into their browsers today.

OK, that’s my tie-in.

Facebook is expected to start trading this morning on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol FB.

Tags: facebook ipo