Man sues domain recovery firm after receiving two cease & desist letters.
A San Diego man has sued typosquatting recovery firm CitizenHawk after receiving two cease & desist letters.
Michael Eddy says he received letters regarding USSearchReports.com and Naturalizes.com. The first letter said USSearchReports.com infringes the rights of Intelius’ mark for “US Search.com”. The second said that Naturalizes.com infringes the rights of Brown Shoe Company’s mark for “Naturalizer”.
The suit (pdf) says that the letters threatened a UDRP if the domains weren’t handed over.
Eddy is suing CitizenHawk, Intelius, and Brown Shoe for declaratory relief, unfair competition, and unfair competition.
It is not clear if Michael Eddy is related to Liz Eddy, who filed a similar lawsuit against CitizenHawk and Match.com after losing a UDRP for Macth.com. That suit is still ongoing in Florida.
At the time the Macth.com lawsuit was filed, CitizenHawk reiterated to Domain Name Wire that it does not provide legal advice to its clients and only files UDRPs with its clients’ approval.
This is not any man he owns patent.org, and has a portfolio of over 10k domain names, old time domain investor, hostsphere is his company, patent attorney.
Ok, the other suit was hostsphere as well so same people
Interesting to note that patent.org also offers a number of other intellectual property services:
http://www.patent.org/pg-tpl.php?doc=services#tm
Doesn’t a pending lawsuit prevent a UDRP from being filed? Seems like a decent strategy by the domain owner…
@ David – most of the time a UDRP panel will not hear a case when a suit has been filed covering the same issue. It will defer to the courts.
“CitizenHawk reiterated to Domain Name Wire that it does not provide legal advice to its clients and only files UDRPs”
That’s simply not true. Citizenhawk’s letters specifically refer to the ACPA and the possibility of court proceedings. They are inherently interpreting and applying law on behalf of their clients.
Great contributors to this post, advise needed: I’ve owned a .com domain for about 4 years, I registered a DBA in one of the counties I do business in, and have the domain forwarded to my main website.
I just found out a company has applied for a Trademark with USPTO for the exact term of my domain and as recently as March 2013 it was published for objection.
This company is in the same business that I have been for 11years, I fear a UDRP case coming.
Any advise on what to do now, before it happens?
WS –
A good defense is a good offense. As such, consider opposing their mark during the publication period, if they make it past the Examiner that is.
Pete
Nice find and write-up.
Great to hear people defending themselves against Citizen Hawk.
They need to be destroyed for how they have treated people.
Prenda Law part deux? Heh.
How does one go about opposing the Trademark application during the publication period?