Company that uses the domain name WeedsInc.com files lawsuit in an effort to get Weeds.com.
A weed control company has filed a lawsuit (pdf) claiming that Innovation HQ is cybersquatting with its ownership of the Weeds.com domain name.
Weeds, Inc. provides commercial and industrial weed control in the mid-atlantic and mid-western states. It uses the domain name WeedsInc.com.
It filed a UDRP with World Intellectual Property Organization back in July. That case has not been decided yet, but the company decided to go ahead and file a lawsuit anyway. It’s interesting that it filed a lawsuit before the UDRP was determined. It could be because the act of filing a UDRP resulted in GoDaddy removing the Whois proxy. It could also be because it’s concerned it will lose the UDRP.
You might be scratching your head wondering how a company in the weed control business got a trademark for the term “weeds”. I know I certainly was.
The company filed a trademark application in 2005. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office sent a refusal notice on the grounds that it was merely descriptive.
Weeds, Inc. responded by pointing to litigation it filed against a competing company. It argued that “weeds” was suggestive, not descriptive, much in the way that “Staples” is suggestive of a store that sells staples. Of course, Staples sells a lot more than staples.
The lawsuit in question was eventually settled, but the trademark office ended up issuing the trademark.
The parked page at Weeds.com includes search terms that you’d expect to find there…”horticulture”, “gardening” and more. Weeds.com was registered in 1998.
The oldest DomainTools historical Whois record for the domain shows Innovation HQ as the owner.
I have a feeling this is going to end up being an expensive lawsuit for Weeds, Inc.
Absurd.
They are trying to claim exclusive use over a generic term for the generic use.
Brad
Generic word being used for what it describes. Parasites.
Anyone with a killer generic using a parking page is playing with fire. They should at least have a website up with relevant info and then some links. Leaving just a link page gives the court/arbi”traitor” an opportunity to steal the name.
Owners of names need financial recourse.
Maybe an industry funded crowdfunding site with large amounts of money to countersue companies.
Companies are just taking flyers by spending money on a udrp or trademark suit knowing that there aren’t many who will countersue or when they are wrong be penalized financially.
Some terms have multiple trademarks on them across various industries. It becomes a free for all.
“We don’t dare go after Weed.com, but we’ll see if we can get away with it for Weeds.com…”
Riddle me this. How come the landscaping company doesn’t want to use Weeds.Ninja, Weeds.Club, Weeds.Top or Weeds.Xyz???
In theory, shouldn’t they want these?
Aren’t they all technically equivalent in nature? Some might even say better, right?
Yet they don’t seem to want them and are willing to litigate over the .com.
Maybe its because of the traffic blead, the lack of consumer awareness, the email loss or one of a thousand other reasons.
Whatever the cause, it leads me to conclude that the new gtlds are a complete .Fail
Weeds website for selling cannabis brands. They are after the big payoff not gardening weeds.
Highly similar to how the owner of WaterSoftInc.com recently failed to hijack WaterSoft.com for similar reasons:
http://www.udrpsearch.com/wipo/d2017-1665
There are ~1200 USPTO filings containing ‘weeds’ and a couple hundred registrations with the WIPO.
Maybe sundry of those hundreds of parties were actually online or had trademarks filed in 1998 when the domain was registered, unlike the O’Neill’s landscaping service. Maybe this attorney wants to file a class action. And then his plaintiffs can draw the 1400 straws to see who gets it.
Gregg Zegarelli, Esq. Putting the dot in dotard.