Pinkalicious author is red in the face.
Victoria Kann, author of the popular children’s book series Pinkalicious, has lost a domain name dispute for Pinkalicious.com.
Kann filed the dispute last month with National Arbitration Forum.
There was a fatal flaw in her case: the domain name was registered well before she started publishing the book series.
Kann argued that she had rights in the “Pinkalicious” mark dating to 2004 when she entered into a contract to publish the series. Of course, no domain owner could have known about her plans in 2004. Also, the trademark she leans on in her case shows a first use in commerce date in 2007.
But none of those dates matter much since the domain was registered way back in 2002.
Larry says
One of the problems with the UDRP which won’t be addressed (if there is no UDRP reform) is how to have a safe harbor so an owner of a domain can negotiate the sale of the domain without having that info used against them in a filing.
In the case of this name the reasonable buyer is the book author and if it were a name I owned I would have sold it for the amount that the UDRP cost the owner ($3000 to $5000).
At this point the chance of selling this name for much more than that is slim.
A possible buyer is Pink clothing brand of course but that is only one possible buyer.
I’d be curious what others see as the value or future potential for this name. Keeping in mind that they can’t really sell this name to anyone who is not a user that has or can establish trademark rights. And I’m sure the click revenue is nominal.
Steve M says
BooHooalicious.