Now that’s demotivating.
The owner of the domain name Despair.net has filed a lawsuit (pdf) against Despair, Inc., maker of “demotivational” products, to block a UDRP decision on the domain name.
Despair, Inc. filed a UDRP against the despair.net domain name on March 20.
The case was weak, but the registrant (Darren L. Dittrich) of the domain name apparently didn’t receive notice of the dispute until after the decision was handed down. Since Dittrich didn’t respond, it was easier for the panelist to find in Despair, Inc’s favor.
Notably, Dittrich registered the domain name 12 years ago in 2000. In 2008 Despair, Inc. approached Dittrich about buying the domain name, but that didn’t go anywhere.
Dittrich is asking the court for declaratory judgment that he is not cybersquatting. He’s also asking for cancellation of Despair, Inc’s trademark for “Despair”.
Despair, Inc. has a history of having fun with trademarks. It actually managed to get the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to grant it a trademark for the 🙁 emoticon, and it jokingly said it was going to sue people for using the emoticon in email.
My guess is the company isn’t laughing about this latest trademark dispute.
Photo: Losing from Despair.com web site.
Peter says
UDRP must be a run by a bunch of idiots that don’t even know the logical sequence of that he reg. the domain 8 years before the company even setup.
Andrew Allemann says
@ Peter – he registered the domain after the company was set up
Jacek says
So does it mean whatever basic word I register using a brand new gtld and if such a word just happens to be a name of some company, does it mean I’ll have to hand my new domain over to that company? I’m asking because I have lots of single word .co’s
ps. as a result of that I guess the only “safe” word to register as a domain will be “shit” as nobody whats to name that their company
Ms Domainer says
*
Definitely a slippery slope decision.
*
Ron says
Seriously, the world is falling apart, what ever happend to common sense, why not go after .co .org .info .us, there should be a timeline…….