I Wear Your Shirt - goes .CO
It was to be expected: Cybersquatters are taking aim at companies and registering the .co equivalent of high traffic .com domains, aiming to receive a trickle of the .com traffic.
A fine example, as we mentioned earlier, is Papajohns.co which is registered by some guy in Hong Kong. The pizza giant has yet to wake up and smack the cybersquatter with a giant slice of pepperoni with extra cheese.
Meanwhile, in a message exchange we had with Internet entrepreneur, Jason Sadler who runs the very popular IWearYourShirt.com web site, he expressed his current frustration and disappointment.
Apparently, someone registered IWearYourShirt.co using Jason’s full name and contact information – only the email address is different. This constitutes not only cybersquatting but blatant fraud as well, as the registrant is impersonating Jason Sadler.
Jason mentioned that his partner has now registered IWYS.co and he’s looking forward to receiving the IWearYourShirt.co domain through some litigation process. Let’s hope that the .CO Registry will assist Jason with that task.
There are good cybersquatters and bad cybersquatters.
But this one is the worst of the entire cb community LOL.
If I was “PapaJohns” or this T-Shirt site guy…..
I would be asking my great ” Intellectual property and Internet law attorney(s) ..”in house or outside firm(s)”..that work for them almost on a “daily basis”…..
What have you been doing and reading for the past YEAR?
Why did you NOT take care of this during the “sunrise period” for $27.00?
And If If they did not know about the .co extension coming out and the 4 -8 month “sunrise period” allowing for company’s to register their Trade Marked Names etc…Maybe they should find a different area of law to practice in….
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I guess there is NOT much money “Proactively Protecting,…. Acting In Their Clients Best Interest?”
Billing 5 minutes at $400 an hour…. to reg a .co domain for $27.00
Now having to be filing C&D letters ~ WIPO Actions ~ Suing in Court….that is a whole different “Cost Beast” ……for PROTECTING THEIR CLIENTS “BEST INTEREST”….
Something that should have been done months before for only a $27.00 cost for their client(s) for one year Registration….Say 10 Years Registration…Only $270.00.
And it is not like either company…. has NOT been through some sort of thing like this before…in fact I would say many times…
Yea, get YOUR domains back….
Then FIRE your: ” Intellectual property and Internet law attorney(s) ..”in house or outside firm(s)”..that work for you.
Because They ARE sitting ON THEIR ASSES ~ COSTING YOU MONEY ~ TIME ~ AGGRAVATION!
When this could of ALL EASILY been Avoided:
BEFORE ANYONE IN THE GENERAL PUBLIC HAD A CHANCE TO REGISTER A .CO Domain Name.
$27.00…. No Problems for a year ~ $270 No Problems for ten years….
Now its going cost your company’s: $1,000 – $5,000+ easily….
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I totally agree 1000%… on ‘normal cybersquatting’…. that is not the issue for me.
And the guy from Hong Kong is wrong…and s the other guy is just plain ‘nut’s
The rightful owners should get their domains..no matter what…even if they missed the sunrise period….
But,
At the same time these company’s cannot be allowed to claim “ignorance”…every time a new domain extension comes out…IMHO
Part of Owing A Trademark or Patent… is using reasonable proactive measures to protect your Brand and Trademarks.
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Peace!
Dan
BTW: This is just one persons opinion and is not legal advice or anything like that as I have no legal expertise, nor am I a lawyer of any kind. Just a “common-sense ~ cost effective” comment to this post only.
A correct,ion…I think., to my post above.
During the . CO “sunrise period” ..the believe the price to reg a Trademark(s) names was $300…not $27 when it was open up to the general public.
My mistake…sorry!
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Still with that being said, ALL my points I was trying to make in the above post ‘stand”.
Does not change any of my views and thoughts…
“Proactive” is cheaper…than crying…. ‘these bad guys registered my banded Trade Mark Name!’
Papa Johns:
How many: C& D letters and WIPO filings and maybe lawsuits has “Papa Johns” be involved with in the past 3-7 years? How much has it cost them NOT being “proactive”….How many domain TM domain cases where you/are currently involved in…. before and during with this .CO extension came out.?
YET,
You and/or your Lawyers had NO clue… someone is going to register your “TM” Band name in .co ?
This was NOT a ‘Foreseeable Event’ for anyone over their in Pizza Land?
(LOL)
After a while…if you have your house has been robbed 10 -100+ times in the last couple years…
Because you still refuse to “lock all the doors” (being proactive)….when your gone or not paying attention….
So stop your “crying”…and get some Lawyer that will “proactively protect your best interest”…before the bad guys have a chance to get into the house…
NOT “ROCKET SCIENCE”
Is wrong you have to spend a little money doing this…yes (being proactive)
Is even more wrong that you have lazy attorneys…having YOU spend 10x -300x+ more $ on each “bad faith domain registration”…. because they did not do anything about ‘proactively protect your best interest’…something that is VERY FORESEEABLE BEFOREHAND .
YET,
Somehow….you do NOT have ‘Intellectual property and Internet law attorney(s) that can easily “foresee”…that some moron(s) is going to register their TM Brand domain in the new domain extension?
There are at least 500-1000+ “Non-Lawyers” I could come up with that will tell you the above statement is 100% correct….
YET,
YOU have gone through this process time after time after time…. “just claiming “Its the bad guys fault”
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You add the EXTRA MONEY up ..that you have spent over the last 3-5+ years on this. NEEDLESSLY!
+++(in most cases)+++
Like I said above:
Suggestion…..
FIRE your: ” Intellectual property and Internet law attorney(s) ..”in house or outside firm(s)”..that work for you.
Because They ARE sitting ON THEIR ASSES ~ COSTING YOU MONEY ~ TIME ~ AGGRAVATION!
I am not “excusing” the bad guys registering YOUR rightful TradeMark Brands and Names…
BUT,
Lets get in the real world…this has been going Very Long Time…Papa Johns knows it and so do their
‘Intellectual property and Internet law attorney(s) ..’in house or outside firm(s)’….that work for you.
SAVE: MONEY ~ TIME ~ AGGRAVATION
BY FINDING SOMEONE OR COMPANY THAT WILL:
“Proactively Protect your Brands TM names as it relates to domain names and their extensions ,…. That WILL BE Acting In YOUR ~ The Clients Best Interest.
Some will get through…but nothing like: PapaJohns .co
It is so lame you do NOT Already Own this domain name….I can’t tell you…
My Bad… I guess I just did.
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Peace!
Lucius “Guns” Fabrice,
Seems to back up my point(s) view and says it all with the first 5 words to this post:
“It was to be expected”
Yet somehow this seems not to be the case with the two company’s in this articles.
I guess that is 1 of my 500 -1000
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Best,
Dan
Disclaimer: I have no idea “Lucius” thought(s) on my post…
Just pointing out a easy ‘fact of life in the domain world’…that seems to mysterious avoid these fine company’s and their expert TM attorneys….’beforehand’… even though they are well aware of this FACT ‘beforehand’.
Dan – the bigger the company, the smaller the corporate brain, IMO 😀
Regarding trademarks, common sense says enforcing it is the only way to preserve it. But why would a company need to spend $300 to get special protection treatment when it’s already their mark? So some companies ignore this inflated pricing; others are not aware of the window of opportunity either.
Availability of a trademark domain does not mean the tm owner won’t come asking for it if you snatch it 😉
Lucius “Guns” Fabrice …/
Papa Johns can not claim “ignorance” on any of this…at least whom ever is charge of their Brand Name etc…
Why would they pay $300? (They should NOT have to..I agree1000%)
But “Reality” has to kick in sometime…does it not?
And this is Reality as we know it now:
It is now going to cost them $1500+ for filling a WIPO another 1k -2K in attorneys fees….and maybe more if they have to sue the current owner…being he is in “Hong Kong”… I am sure the bill will be up past 5k…before all is said and done.
But if they want to live in “fantasy land”…so “legally they can claim ‘foul’…every other other day…. peace be with them.
I am just tired of them crying about it when they know it is going to happen weather they like it or not and whether it is legal or not.
Pay the $300…and “Have A Slice”…and “Forget About It”
Stop The morons beforehand… I realize $300 or 3K-5K might not be a big deal to PJ’S…
Just so much cheaper being “proactive”… they should NOT have to be…BUT it would be the “common sense” thing to do…IMHO
Can argue with the last part… just costing them more money then they would have had to spend.
Thanks for the reply post….you have a very nice domain blog setup!
Best,
Dan