Munchkin fights woman who incorporated “Munchkins” in her domain name.

Baby products company Munchkin has lost its attempt to get the domain name MamasandMunchkins.com from a “working mother of 5 small children”.

Munchkin, which operates at the web site Munchkin.com, argued that Teri VanDerLaan’s domain name “fully incorporates” Munchkin’s trademark.

So what happens when a big company goes after a working mother of 5 just trying to make a living? For once, I think the respondent’s decision to not use a lawyer was a smart move. She wrote a compelling response to show she was being bullied:

. . .the name MUNCHKINS itself is a plural and means children (as in the Munchkins from the Wizard of Oz movie fame). I am a working mother of 5 small children running a very small online business out of my home. I certainly do not feel like a threat to this multi million dollar organization. I am familiar with the Munchkin line but I do not believe that the legal name of my business (Mamas and Munchkins,LLC) nor my website (www.mamasandmunchkins.com) breaks the law or infringes on their business. At no time has anyone EVER mistaken me for them by contacti! ng [sic] me to ask if I carry their products. I was not aware that a nickname for children (AKA Munchkins) could be a trademark violation. When the company was legally filed my lawyer checked for trademark violations at that time and saw no conflict with the word Munchkins. I will respect your decision at the WIPO and I look forward to hearing from you. I have no problem changing landing page or metatag words that are inadvertently listed as munchkin versus munchkins but I would prefer to keep the corporation name and website name that I’ve worked hard for years to build customer loyalty to so that I can continue to support my large family.”

What arbitrator could rule against this respondent?

But perhaps VanDerLaan is more on top of things that it seems. Her web site has a copyright notice of 2010, where as Munchkin.com still shows 2008.

Popular location based social networking company forgets to renew its domain name.

Kudos to social networking site Foursquare, which freely admitted this morning on Twitter that it messed up and didn’t renew its domain name.

Based on the language of the tweet, it appears that Foursquare may have had an old credit card on file with domain name registrar GoDaddy. Or perhaps its email address in whois at master@foursquare.com no longer worked.

Compare Foresquare’s admission with what happened when CrashPlan let its domain name expire. It blamed GoDaddy, and the falsehood that it was GoDaddy’s fault quickly spread across the web. Forgetting to renew a domain name is one of the most common reason major sites have outages.

Whatever the reason for Foresquare letting its domain name expire, it won’t have the same problem for at least another 10 years. It renewed the domain name until March 25, 2020.

Bruce Marler discusses internet marketing for small businesses — and what it means for domainers.

You meet a lot of domainers that are good at technology, and others that are good at sales. It’s rare to find ones with both skills. But one of those is Bruce Marler, who started registering domain names in the 90s when he was helping AT&T build its internet backbone.

Last year Marler exited the corporate world to start LocalTek, which helps small businesses market themselves on the web. In less than 6 months the company earned the business of over 100 clients. Believe it or not, the foundation of its initial contact with many of these companies is a .me domain name.

In this episode of Domain Name Wire radio, you’ll learn:

-The psyche of small businesses when it comes to internet marketing
-When a .me domain name can make sense in branding
-How to approach small business end users about buying your domain names
-How and why LocalTek decided to take outside investment to grow its business

Below you can play this episode of DNW radio, click over to the transcript, or embed this show on your web site.

Show Title: "DNW Radio: Bruce Marler on Local Internet Marketing"

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Domain disputes common with franchises.

I often see domain name disputes between franchisors and franchisees when it comes to domain names. These usually resolve around two issues:

1. Franchisor doesn’t want franchisee to register a domain name using the franchise trademarks
2. When a franchise agreement is terminated, the franchisor wants the domain name back/terminated

Here’s a case in point. Re-Bath LLC recently filed a domain name arbitration request against a former franchisee in Reno. The franchisee registered the domain name RebathReno.com when it had a franchise contract with Rebath. The relationship later went sour, and the franchisee and Rebath terminated their relationship.

Rebath argued that the former franchisee no longer had rights to own the domain name RebathReno.com, but the respondent said the franchise agreement didn’t mention domain name rights.

As is usual in this type of case, the panel found that this dispute is outside the scope of UDRP because it deals with other contract rights. But Rebath could have avoided much of this mess by including clauses related to domain names in its franchise agreement.

Franchisors take note: one extra clause in your initial agreements could save you a headache down the road.

Oversee announces two “mini shows” for 2010.

DOMAINfest, a conference organized by Oversee.net and DomainSponsor, has announced two one day events taking place in the U.S. this year.

The first will be May 13, 2010 at the W Hotel in Fort Lauderdale and the second on August 18, 2010 at the Grand Hyatt in midtown Manhattan, immediately following the Affiliate Summit East conference. Each event will including networking and programming and a Moniker live domain name auction. Admission will be $175.

Oversee’s move makes sense for a number of reasons:

1. TRAFFIC inked an exclusive deal with Rick Latona for auctions this year. Without these one day events, Moniker would only have two major domain conferences this year at which to run auctions (its own DOMAINfest conferences). The company just added two more auction events to the calendar.

2. It allows Oversee to reach out to its regional customers, and new potential customers attending other conferences in the cities at the same time.

3. The entry fee of only $175 opens up networking opportunities to people that don’t want to spend more money to attend one of the major domain name conferences.

Registration for the events will be open starting April 12 at DOMAINfest.com.