Quote:
Originally Posted by Uncle Robin
If you do, you'll have to ask me VERY nicely, and make the sale worth my while.  |
And that is the point.
It's one thing when somebody has a legitimate reason and use for the name (do they sell ladies clutches?) vs site squatting trolls, who pick up generic names and don't use them until the can sell them for big bucks to somebody who does.
For example, if they were fighting with Simon and Shuster (owners of Pocket Books) it would be open-and-shut. S&S has a valid trademark and would be exploiting it. That they *don't own the site and instead go by the corporate name instead of the brand tells us the ask is more than its worth. More, the reasonable variants (pocket-book, pocket_book, etc) are probably being used properly.
Domain names are more like trademarks: they *must* be exploited constantly at peril of loss.
It's why Disney owns "Captain Marvel" while Warner only owns the original character of the same name: the creators stopped using it and others appropriated it. Marvel Comics was only the third and it took them something like 8 charscters before they found one that's stuck. For now.
And like trademarks, customer confusion is something courts consider.
There is precedent for even similar but not identical marks to be "confiscated".
Right now it seems to be in use as a redirect by a mortgage outfit.
Makes it iffy both ways.
I wouldn't dismiss this suit out of hand just yet.
Let them fight it out.
Courts exist for a reason.