Help with Domain for Sale

[job314]

Hello everyone,
I own three domain names that directly reflect a massive, multi-million dollar marketing push recently introduced by a major company. The marketing push is Service Marked (sm), but not trademarked. I sent an email to their CIO, and a response came back the next day from a manager in marketing, saying that they were interested in pricing for the domain names. I explained that I was having the domain names appraised, but I was open to offers. The next day, I received an email response from the VP of marketing.

Sounded like they were eager to buy, almost to the point of threatening me to put up an offer...

So I did. A ridiculously high figure, knowing how big this marketing campaign was, and also that this company reported $3.5 Billion in revenue for 2002.

And no response at all from anyone in that company. No "piss off", no "that's too high", not even "we're not interested" or "we're taking you to court".

It's been over 1 week now with no response at all.
Is this a negotiating tactic? What should I do?

[edited by: Marcia at 11:38 pm (utc) on April 7, 2003]
[edit reason] Sorry, no email quotes, please. [/edit]

[Lisa]

Internally you have no idea what they are doing... but this is the case of most huge companies. Things take time inside a company. You should follow up with them in two weeks from that date of your last email with them.

[Filipe]

Word. Large corporate beauracracies can kill you. (Not literally, not even figuratively in regard to the sale of the domain name. I just mean the tension will get to you.)

Even when spending a paltry sum of money, you'd be surprised at how much authorization a manager needs to get in order to spend money that is included in regular protocols. (E.g., it's okay to spend money on office supplies without getting approval, because there's a budget for that. Buying a domain name may be an unusual expense, and if you're asking for a lot, it may require more time).

Best of luck at cashing in on the prospect!

[A_Web_Guy]

If the name is a service mark, they may be preparing legal documents and trying to serve you a summons. How closely does it match their intellectual property?

If you have any luck, I have a few hundred very nice domain industry specific and 4 character names for which I will be happy to offer a handsom commission upon sale. :-)

Mark

[A_Web_Guy]

Sorry, I just wanted to add this ...

ICANN UDRP - [icann.org...]

[job314]

Well, hello again everyone, I guess I pushed it a little too far...

A letter from their legal department:

Dear Sir or Madam:

[[b]edited by: WebGuerrilla at 8:23 pm (utc) on April 8, 2003]
[edit reason] No email quotes please [/edit]

[pendanticist]

[edited by: Marcia at 11:38 pm (utc) on April 7, 2003]
[edit reason] Sorry, no email quotes, please. [/edit]

Ain't you loint nuttin yet? :) <- Rhetorical Question.

('Ya might want to consider paraphrasing.)

Pendanticist.

[A_Web_Guy]

I am not an attorney, nor qualified to give legal advice. However, I buy hundreds of domains, and I have never lost one yet. Depending on the name(s), you may have a right to them, or you may NOT. If you want to sticky mail me or call, I would be happy to give my opinion and whether I would give them up or stand my ground.

[Lisa]

First rule of advise I give.... Never name the first price! Always let the other side name the price. By naming the price they have you right where they want you. You now look like a squater. I would find a purpose for the domains fast. Or there case is going to look very good against you.

[edited by: Lisa at 8:22 pm (utc) on April 8, 2003]

[CHC]

Transfer your domain to another party immediately. The company wanting an offer from you was the oldest trick in the book for proving a bad faith registration under the UDRP. With that now under their belt and their service marks, plus probably an enormous legal budget, a successful UDRP case is simply a slam dunk case.

By transferring to another party, friend or colleague, they will have to start all over again. When they contact your friend to get their offer, your friend must say that they are not willing to sell the domain for any price as they have a project in mind for it. Preferably find something to put up that does not infringe on the company's intellectual property rights and eventually the company will make your friend an offer that he or she cannot refuse. You still have a chance to come out of this similing if you move quickly.

[job314]

Interesting tactic CHC, this was a point I was going to bring up to my lawyer. However, I must question if simply transferring to a friend doesn't constitute bad faith on my friend's part?

Here is a summary of my case:

I am in Canada, my registrar is in Canada. Not sure if I fall under the ACPA, especially as far as statutory damages are concerned. I realize I still fall under the UDRP. I own three domain names, two of which infringe on a trademark that, so far, the US P&T Office has only give notice of allowance for, not actually registered. They are demanding all three domain names. I have had and still have a non-commercial purpose for the domain names. The company in question hounded me with several emails wanting a price, and only after giving a price did they have their lawyer contact me. Sounds a little bit like reverse domain name hijacking. so far, they don't know my identity, which may look like bad faith in front of a dispute panel, but without identity, if they decide to sue for statutory damages under the ACPA (So far, no statute has been broken) they can only sue "in rem", in other words they can only sue the domain name. The only relief available along those lines is the transfer of the domain names with no possibility of seeking damages.

Let me know what you think.

I'm tempted to also register the [domain name]sucks.com domain name too, and let them try and grab that out from under me.

Cheers

[CHC]

The advantage that your friend would have over you is that he or she would not have committed the cardinal sin of offering to sell it to the company while they were on their fishing competition. They would have to start all over again with building their evidence for the UDRP case and you would be dealing from a position of strength this time round because you could benefit from hindsight and avoid making the mistakes of last time.

Very few companies bother to sue for damages, just recovering the names is enough for most successful claimants.

Use the Internet to find an accommodation address or mail forwarding facility in a notoriously unfriendly venue for litigation like Nigeria or Indonesia. Change the address details to this address and the company will be further dissuaded from seeking costly legal action. I think that they will realise that you have outsmarted them and then the time will be ripe for you to settle on a reasonable out of court settlement of say one or two thousand dollars per name. Ask any more and they will go through the UDRP route and you might get nothing.

[job314]

As my contact info is anonymous at this time, as I do not want this company to know who I am, could I not theoretically "transfer" the domain names to myself and start from there, or would it have to be someone new?

And as far as the contact info changing to nigeria or somewhere else, unfortunately when you register a domain name there is a clause as to where any court proceedings would take place. As mine is registered through OpenSRS, a TuCows company, I think the jurisdiction would fall in Canada. (Tucows is located in Toronto).

There was a case where a man in Barbados registered a domain name through Tucows (Canada) and a company in the states wanted to go to court. The canadian court system would not allow the proceedings to take place in Barbados as the registrar was canadian and the plaintiff was american.

Lastly, I wonder if a panel would not see past the simple tactic of transferring the domain to someone I know, and still award the domain names to the company, as the overall picture is still one of bad faith, not to mention an attempt to "trick" my way out of a dispute adds to the idea of bad faith.

Thanks for the advice.