

Ask HN: Obtain a domain from a squatter by trademarking - bazsouthafrica

I have hit upon a great domain which is being squatted upon at the moment. Everything except the '.com' domain is available. Thank goodness, I don't need the '.com' now (I am based in Canada, so will use '.ca' for now) but I will need it in the future. I don't want to grow my business and then get extorted. How about trademarking in the mean time, and then forcing the squatter out of the domain. Is this a good strategy?
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dangrossman
That's an unethical and impotent strategy. Simply owning a domain without
using it is not squatting. Having a trademark does not give you rights to
someone else's property either. See Nissan Motors vs. Nissan.com.

The UDRP only allows you to take a domain for trademark infringement if:

a) the domain name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or
service mark in which the complainant has rights; and

b) he/she has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name;
and

c) the domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith

~~~
bazsouthafrica
The squatter has several names registered, has indicated to me that my
particular name of interest is for sale, and he asked me to give him the best
possible price. I said $300, and I never heard back from him. If I want to use
the name, do you have any suggestions?

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subsection1h

        I said $300, and I never heard back from him.
        If I want to use the name, do you have any suggestions?
    

Bid more than $300?

If you don't know how much the domain is worth, you should do some homework.
Here are a couple of sites I've used when attempting to determine the market
value of a domain:

<http://www.domaintools.com/buy/sales-history/>

<http://www.domain-prices.com/search/prices/5000>

~~~
bazsouthafrica
I have tried those services. They never give me any info - you see, nobody has
ever used that name before.

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Jacob4u2
Is there a way to see how long he has owned the domain? From there, estimate a
yearly cost to him (12$ * years registered) + 10% profit and start from there.
That seems reasonable.

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og1
You can use whois to see when the domain was registered. Since all the other
extensions weren't registered I'd assume this is more of a brand style name
and was registered fairly recently. It is hard to assign value of a domain
without knowing what it is. Also, most people who sell domains are looking for
the sales to compensate for the rest of their portfolio that don't sell. So
registration fees + 10% wouldn't likely work as an offer.

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BigNuts
If he owns the domain before you setup your business and do the trademarks he
can keep the domain. Your logic is very flawed because you don't understand
the process.

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dear
If I were you I wouldn't use a non-geographically neutral extension to start
with, unless you only intended to keep your business strictly in Canada.

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mesozoic
Really tired of people calling legitimate domain investors "squatters"

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bbissoon
I'm tired of domain investors being called legitimate. It's free and open
space; take what you need and leave the rest.

... You're probably the person before the hurricane who buys all the gas in
the neighborhood and resells it to people for 1,000 times the price.

~~~
ohashi
Or invests in a company that looks like it might hit it big before everyone
else does.

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ig1
It's what Groupon did, but I wouldn't recommend it.

