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Gleissner’s UDRP filings just an R&D project?

by — Policy & Law 5 Comments

Well, that would be an abuse of UDRP.

World Trademark Review talked with an unnamed source “related to one of [Michael] Gleissner’s businesses” about what the heck he’s up to with his trademark filings, UDRPs and more.

The anonymous source told World Trademark Review that the allegation that the trademark filings are part of a scheme to acquire domain names is bunk:

That is a far-fetched and gross allegation. Just in case you’re wondering whether the stuff on UDRP that you see written on blogs is true, the truth is that we were trying to see how UDRP works and learn its possibilities in-house as part of an R&D project. It would be really ambitious thinking that you can just obtain old domains by virtue of a baby-trademark filed six months ago.

An R&D project? That’s interesting. Don’t forget what one of a Bigfoot representative’s job responsibilities was:

co-existence, consent agreements, etc. to ensure creative resolution of IP disputes, including manipulation of TMs and common law marks to achieve UDRP “reverse domain name hijacking”

I’m not sure exactly what Gleissner and his companies are up to. But they are filing an awful lot of objections against trademark applications that have little to nothing to do with what they are seeking trademarks for. And trying to trademark .com domains you don’t own? What could possibly be a benign motive for that?

Bigfoot wants to hire an “aggressive” litigator

by — Policy & Law 8 Comments

Company posts job description for a California-licensed litigator with IP experience.

I wrote earlier today about one of Michael Gleissner’s firms backing down from its challenge to a trademark application filed by Expensify. Expensify alleged in its response to the trademark objection that Gleissner (and his lawyer) committed fraud to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Gleissner’s firms have been involved in a number of questionable intellectual property disputes and filings. And an intellectual property manager for his company Bigfoot previously claimed on his LinkedIn profile to be involved with “manipulation of TMs and common law marks to achieve UDRP “reverse domain name hijacking”. Click here to continue reading…

Bigfoot IP Manager makes a two-step change to LinkedIn Profile

by — Policy & Law 9 Comments

“Manipulation” and “achieve UDRP reverse domain name hijacking” removed from profile.

Marco Notarnicola is an Intellectual Property/trademarks manager for Bigfoot Entertainment, a company that is coming under fire for questionable trademark activity. The company was recently found to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking in a UDRP for Slized.com.

I was quite surprised when I came across Notarnicola’s LinkedIn profile, which stated that one of his responsibilities at BigFoot is:

co-existence, consent agreements, etc. to ensure creative resolution of IP disputes, including manipulation of TMs and common law marks to achieve UDRP “reverse domain name hijacking”

Although I have not personally heard from Notarnicola after contacting him for comment, he has changed his LinkedIn profile a couple of times.

First, he changed the word “achieve” to “recognize cases of,” which didn’t make much sense.

Now he has completely changed the controversial part of the statement:

co-existence, consent agreements, etc. to ensure creative resolution of IP disputes, including administration of trademarks and domains mechanics involving UDRP procedures.

It looks much better, but I’m sure anyone who receives a UDRP complaint from one of Gleisnner’s companies will benefit by pointing out the earlier profile.

A new Trademark King? Domainers need to watch out.

by — Policy & Law 68 Comments

A number of companies owned my Michael Gleissner are filing questionable trademark applications, including ones that match domain names he doesn’t own.

Back in 2014, I wrote about the Trademark King. Trademark King was an Indiana business that attempted to trademark the domain names of famous companies, such as Twitter.com and Porsche.com.

It was a hair-brained attempt by someone who clearly didn’t understand how U.S. trademarks work.

Now there’s a similar situation, and it hits a bit closer to home.

I started to look into this when UDRPs were recently filed on seemingly generic or dictionary words, like Apollo.com and Zero.com. George Kirikos sent some interesting information to me about these bizarre cases, and it came to a fore again this week when a couple of UDRP decisions were published.

The Apollo.com UDRP was filed by Fashion One Television Limited and Zero.com was filed by CKL Holdings N.V., and both UDRPs were subsequently dropped.

Both companies list Michael Gleissner as Director. Gleissner is a frequent domain name buyer through his company Bigfoot.

CKL has two other UDRPs pending for domains. Two of Gleisnner’s other companies, American Franchise Marketing Limited and China Capital Brands Limited, have also filed UDRPs.

Bigfoot Ventures LLC lost two UDRPs that were published this week, which brought my attention back to this issue. The two UDRPs were for BubblingBeats.com and Slized.com. The panel in BubblingBeats.com considered reverse domain name hijacking, noting that Barefoot should have known that some of its arguments on “bare assertions” would fail. But the domain owner didn’t respond to the case, and the panelist didn’t find RDNH. Click here to continue reading…