
Donald Trump is coming after my domain name, claiming trademark infringement - tomkwok
https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/3mgce8/hong_kong_donald_trump_is_coming_after_my_domain/
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vinhboy
A while back I bought a domain for a car name using the ".org" TLD.

I got a C&D from the car company, which I promptly ignored because I was young
and I thought it was ridiculous that a company should be allowed to regulate
the internet.

I was making about $1K+/per month in revenue from Google Ads because I was
putting relevant content on the site (I never pretended to be the car
company).

About three months in, GoDaddy, my registrar, took my domain name and gave it
to the car company without notice.

They also charged me $30 for the administration fees associated with handling
that transaction.

I learned a pretty good lesson that day. This is why I adamantly support
things like net neutrality. I find it repugnant that companies can do stuff
like this.

~~~
jeremysmyth
Net neutrality has absolutely nothing to do with trademark infringement. The
lesson you should have learned is not that the Internet should be free, but
that you cannot earn money by using someone else's name in a similar context
(which in trademark law is their legal property), especially after they find
out and ask you to stop using legal methods.

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wiradikusuma
So, I happen to own trump.id, just a month before Donald Trump announced his
candidacy. I guess I'm lucky or very unlucky.

I like to buy domain whenever I think of some app idea (I have dozens). I
thought Trump is a cool name for a game project, but on a second thought..

~~~
joshka
And yet, it doesn't seem to be displaying a swastika yet... ;)

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jerf
The reddit discussion appears to be three months old. If you visit the domain
now, it appears to be a godaddy parking domain. So, perhaps the resolution was
that the poster let it expire, and now basically nobody has it?

A quick cruise around variations on "trumpsucks.com", "trumpsucks.net",
"notrump.com", and other such domains shows no clear pattern to me in
ownership, each being owned by what appears to be a different person, all
clearly not owned by the "THE TRUMP ORGANIZATION" that owns trump.com.

It seems like this may be exactly what it seems; an organization believing
that people will be fooled into thinking that "trumpd.com" is sourced from THE
TRUMP ORGANIZATION. It seems to me that despite the apparent politically-
charged subject matter, that this is just a standard trademark dispute. Which
I say without reference to whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. (With
the explosion of TLDs it's probably becoming an irrelevant thing; only the
very largest organizations are going to be able to keep up with this sort of
thing in the full DNS space anymore.)

~~~
chris_overseas
The OP doesn't state what the TLD is, but it seems clear it is not a .com

> I own a domain name that has the domain root "trumpd" (so the full domain is
> like www.trumpd.xx)

~~~
deckar01
I decided to browse through the list of TDLs to see if anything funny matched
up.

trumpd.one

trumpd.id

trumpd.hk

trumpd.ck

trumpd.ie

trumpd.ar - My personal favorite. The app would alert you when Donald Trump is
close by.

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craigvn
While you may think their claim is frivolous or unfair at the end of the day
he has lots of money and if he really wanted to stop you he will. Money talks
in the legal system. So I would do the cheapest, easiest thing possible to
show them the domain is nothing to do with Trump and see what they say, it is
quite likely they are just trolling every domain that has _trump_ in it.

~~~
jhanschoo
You also forget that to IP lawyers, this probably seems like a clear cut case
and an opportunity to get their name out there. I have little doubt that he
will have no trouble looking for lawyers willing to handle this case pro bono.

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chrismcb
People can own trademarks on mundane names. Looks like trump owns the
trademarks for trump in there online entertainment category (apparently for a
gambling game) So yeah looks like there was a potential trademark issue
(although geography might be involved) What this means is do some research
before naming your game or company.

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plusquamperfekt
You've been trumped ... that's all ;)

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1943873/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1943873/)

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gist
Trademark owners have to enforce Trademark rights not a reason to slam "Donald
Trump" and his legal team. Same thing happens (particularly with domain names)
by any major corporation. [1]

[1]
[http://www.udrpsearch.com/search?query=google&search=parties](http://www.udrpsearch.com/search?query=google&search=parties)

~~~
mikeash
Nothing obligates trademark owners to come after non-infringers like this.

~~~
gist
[http://www.inta.org/TrademarkBasics/FactSheets/Pages/LossofT...](http://www.inta.org/TrademarkBasics/FactSheets/Pages/LossofTrademarkRightsFactSheet.aspx)

And also defacto TM owners do enforce rights so there are also legitimate non-
legally required reasons to do so.

~~~
mikeash
The key part of my statement is "non-infringers." Yes, you can lose your
trademark if you don't go after people who infringe it. But you don't have to
go after people who _aren 't_ infringing, as is the case here.

~~~
gist
The OP said "I just took the old landing page down".

We don't know what was on that landing page do we? There could have been
something that was infringing in some way.

For the record I happen to have a domain name that I registered that has the
word "Trump" in it and is a .com. And I have never been contacted by Trump's
legal team. This doesn't prove my point however I thought I would point it out
as perhaps relevant.

~~~
mikeash
OP says it had nothing to do with Donald. They might be lying, but at that
point we have nothing to discuss at all.

