After paying off cybersquatters, Kohler says it got burned.
Plumbing fixtures giant Kohler has filed an anticybersquatting lawsuit against a company that it had already paid to stop registering its trademarks as domain names.
The federal district suit was filed against DomainJet, Inc, Jack Sun, and one or more of the company’s employees.
According to Kohler, it approached the defendants after it noticed they registered Kohlerco.in. The defendants demanded $1,000 to transfer the domain name. Kohler offered $500 for the domain if the defendants would not register any Kohler trademarks in the future.
The defendants apparently agreed and Kohler paid the money.
But shortly thereafter the defendants allegedly registered four more infringing domain names and demanded $1,000 to transfer the new domain names.
That’s what prompted Kohler to file the suit. Honestly, I can’t blame them.
Now Kohler is asking for $100,000 per infringing domain name, or $500,000 total.
Larry says
“But shortly thereafter the defendants allegedly registered four more infringing domain names and demanded $1,000 to transfer the new domain names.”
I took a quick look at the lawsuit. I’m not seeing any exhibit (like an email or an affidavit) which substantiates the demand for money. The lawsuit does claim they demanded $1000 and it does show that they did register the domain names but I’m surprised there is no proof of the money demand.
I’m also not seeing in the lawsuit any backup for the claim that that there was any agreement not to register any more names.
I’m not justifying what they did obviously.
Andrew Allemann says
@ Larry – there were a number of exhibits…did you view all of them?
Neagle says
The plaintiff is not on call to provide documentary evidence of the alleged wrongdoing at this juncture rather that have to lay out their claim which will be “proven” at trial
Larry says
“did you view all of them?”
Yes. I downloaded the original filing which was a total of 9 pdf’s. The main document didn’t indicate in the writing at all that there were any exhibits substantiating the $1000, the $500 settlement, or the demands for any further money. There were a total of 7 exhibits.
If you would like the documents let me know.