RT @DomainGang - $250,000 got burned up buying Retweet.com
The news of Retweet.com selling for a quarter of a million dollars on Flippa, six months ago, came as an indication that start-ups are willing to invest serious money in domaining and social media.
As we mentioned back then, the existing trademark applications at the USPTO complicated things about which company – other than Twitter itself – would have an interest in Retweet.com
It seems that the buyer of Retweet.com thought they’d have an advantage with the domain, when in fact it appears as if they blew $250,000 out the door.
Australian based Dollar Rose Holdings LTD applied for a trademark with the USPTO in May.
On August 28 (yesterday), the USPTO responded that the application for registering the mark “retweet” has been initially denied:
A non-final action has been mailed. This is a letter from the examining attorney requesting additional information and/or making an initial refusal. However, no final determination as to the registrability of the mark has been made.
The reason: the pre-existence of the pending mark applications for “retweet” and “tweet” by Twitter Inc.
In particular:
The filing dates of pending Application Serial Nos. 77804841 AND 77715815 precede applicant’s filing date. See attached referenced applications. If one or more of the marks in the referenced applications register, applicant’s mark may be refused registration under Trademark Act Section 2(d) because of a likelihood of confusion with the registered mark(s). See 15 U.S.C. §1052(d); 37 C.F.R. §2.83; TMEP §§1208 et seq. Therefore, upon receipt of applicant’s response to this Office action, action on this application may be suspended pending final disposition of the earlier-filed referenced applications.
The real kicker is that both applications by Twitter Inc. are themselves suspended, due to other mark applications that are pending – as we explained in our post earlier.
What a Catch-22 for a company that spent $250,000 on a domain name and is now sitting on the edge of their seat, hoping the trademark application won’t be denied due to the obvious: they didn’t secure a clear field in the trademark arena.
What a freaking mess…twitter or retweet…I think the social media crap is just too much.
Did the Retweet.com buyer blow $250,000 ?
Of course
Now there are million copycats of tweeter, youtube, groupon ,chartoullete,and etc etc but fortunately there is only one BS site…..ha ha
Kerran – Crap or not, this is a case of not doing enough research when applying for a mark.
BullS – Who will be the copier of the copycats? 😀