It’s a ubiquitous term in the domain industry.
An Austin man has filed a trademark application (serial 88833592) for “makeOffer” for “Computer services, namely, domain forwarding services.”
Make Offer is, of course, a common term in the domain name industry for unpriced domain names seeking an offer.
Mark Estabrook operates a site at MakeOffer.site. He submitted a screenshot from the site as his specimen. The page reads:
makeOffer
you landed here because the domain name you typed in your browser’s URL was forwarded here. a person or organization owns the name and wants us to broker it for them privately. it can be yours. to begin the process, tell us which name you are interested in and SUBMIT a reasonable offer. as seller’s agent, we will forward your offer and if seller wants to respond we will contact you.
The trademark application cites a first use date of March 8, 2020.
I emailed Estrabrook yesterday to understand his objective in trademarking the term. I have not yet heard back.
He is out of touch. You can see his site. Just dropped him a line as well. Could he really prevail on that application?
Unlikely. He helpfully included this additional statement in his application:
“SIGNIFICANCE OF MARK makeOffer appearing in the mark means or signifies or is a term of art for MAKE OFFER in the relevant trade or industry or as used in connection with the goods/services listed in the application.”
Ummm… calling your mark a ‘term of art’ in the relevant trade is an interesting approach. Not one you see too often, though.
His next step, file an UDRP for MakeOffer,com
A novel approach, it will be interesting to see if he is successful