Business First?

triumph · 07-20-2006, 01:14 AM

What if two people are in a domain dispute and one of them had the domain name first, but the other one had a business with the name first for a much longer period of time?

vicki2 · 07-20-2006, 05:49 AM

This is an interesting scenario, and although the laws have now changed a bit (and they are changing fast from what I gather), here's an interesting case

http://www.arb-forum.com/domains/decisions/97323.htm

It's a bit of a dry read because it's the court's findings, but what I found most interesting was how they decided whether or not the domain name was registered in 'bad faith' ...ie in order to screw the larger company.

zach · 07-20-2006, 11:03 AM

Yes, bad faith is a big indicator in the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy. Another thing that's interesting is that the entire panel consisted of only one member...

Grace · 07-20-2006, 08:42 PM

How can they determine bad faith?

zach · 07-21-2006, 11:13 AM

It's very subjective, but generally if the domain holder is trying to make money on the trademark, or if they are trying to dillute or otherwise harm the trademark, that is bad faith.

Grace · 07-21-2006, 02:28 PM

Thanks for explaining that!

vicki2 · 07-27-2006, 09:13 AM

I still think the adsense thing is one of the most interesting. A small company has had the name for years, and yet they are the one running the disclaimer on their website rather than google running one on their adsense site. The little guy got smacked again.

Grace · 07-27-2006, 08:17 PM

This is definately an exciting struggle!

andreww38 · 08-13-2006, 07:09 AM

well, they could sell the adsense domain to yahoo!
with the provision that they'd have a linkback to their new business domain for the next 2 years!

imagine adsense.com going to yahoo! search marketing....
i think Yahoo! might be willing to pay a little bit for the domain....

vicki2 · 08-13-2006, 09:04 AM

Oh, what a crafty idea, Andrew! It's a perfect solution particularly in this case, where the little guy is a bit bitter about the whole deal. Really creative way to pull off a double whammy!