Two California companies will head to court of business name.
Electronic Creations Company (ECC), a web development company, has filed a lawsuit (pdf) seeking declaratory relief to fend of an attack from a California real estate firm.
ECC owns a number of good domain names, including VH.com, Pup.com, We.org, and DuckPond.com.
It also owns AscentRealEstate.com. That caught the attention of Ascent Real Estate, a San Diego real estate firm using AscentRealEstate.net, which has apparently accused ECC of cybersquatting.
Like many of ECC’s domain names, the company monetizes the AscentRealEstate.com domain name through the ZipRealty affiliate program.
It’s not quite clear when ECC became the owner of the AscentRealEstate.com domain name. It is clear that the domain was already registered by someone when Ascent started its business in 2005, which is why the real estate firm opted to register the .net domain name.
ECC says it registered the domain name “…because the Ascent brand is positive and uplifting, and has religious connotations for one of the principals of ECC.”
That might be suspect if looked at in a vacuum. But the company also registered other variations of “ascent”, including AscendRealEstate.com, AscensionHomes.com, AscensionProperties.com, AscensionProperty.com, AscensionRealEstate.com, and AscensionRealty.com.
That lends more credibility to ECC’s argument.
On the surface, this seems like a case where the domain name is much more valuable to the real estate firm, and you’d hope the two parties could strike a deal.
Timzo says
I’m thinking it does not matter much what ECC’s argument is, they regged it before the TM was filed, so Ascent now needs to prove a common law trademark, which is much harder.
Tough nuts, Ascent. You got to pay for the domain or spend a fortune proving common law, maybe lose, and then pay even more.
apartments in pune says
It looks like a serious issue and they give them.