our name stolen on a .me.uk

how do we get it off them

[briggidere]

Hi all,

I noticed today that our company name has been registered using a .me.uk. We have the .co.uk and .com
we have had the site running for over 7 years.

This was only registered 6-7 months ago and is in the same market as us. they are bidding on yahoo and basically stealing business from us as they pass themselves off as us in their ads.

How and can we get this domain off them? This really bugs me. I just wanna get their head on a stick...

Thanks

[engine]

"Stolen" is a strong word. Someone has registered a domain name that's similar/same as yours. I expect they are all over the Internet.

I'd not worry too much about .me.uk domains in general.

It may be that the other organisation is deliberatly targeting you. If you can prove they are using your trademark, you should have no problem proving it, with time and money.

Alternatively, and probably cheaper, would be to offer them something for the domain.

Finally, if I felt strongly that a .me.uk domain was important to protect my trademark, i'd go and register everything else I could to protect it.

[Dorian]

Are these guys selling the same product as you? Did they come into the market after you? In other words are they literally trading off your name?

[briggidere]

our name was registered in April 1999 and they registered theirs in Dec 05.

we weren't able to trademark the our name as it was to general, but they are providing the same service as us.

they are only using this domain when you search for our company name and have a redirect from this domain to their main site.

any further advice would be appreciated.

briggidere

[ritch_b]

You may be able to refer to Nominet's dispute service [nominet.org.uk], especially if the other party is making an attempt to pass themselves off as your business. If you're after solid legal advice though, you really would need to speak to a Solicitor with experience of domain name practise.

R.

[briggidere]

cheers for the responses,

the only place they are using this domain name is in the name shown in the ppc adds they run, not the actual website address as this redirected.

does anyone know of a solicitor with domain name experience in the UK

thanks

[ritch_b]

briggidere; private message heading your way.

R.