domain trademark question

[eskipii]

ok I have a friend who's always saying...

"i want some one to give me this brand of car"

so i thought it would be funny for his birthday to give him a funny present so i registered a domain.

called: give"person's name"a"car brand".com

never intened it to be public, just a joke.

now a damn lawyer form the car company is saying trademark infringment?

registered it 2 weeks ago. not even finished building it.
this really sucks.

[Jenstar]

Yes, it is considered trademark infringement - you are using their trademarked name in a domain name without permission. Any time you use a trademarked name in a domain name, you could find yourself on the receiving end of a cease and desist letter from the company's legal team. Some companies are more vigilant of this kind of thing, while others ignore it. You just happened to pick a company that is vigilant about protecting against misuse of their trademark, even though you simply registered the domain name for a fun site.

You could fight it legally, but you'd need pretty deep pockets to do so, and companies protecting their trademark have the deepest pockets around.

Are they asking you to hand over the domain name? Or just to not use the domain name?

Yes, it sucks for those who don't realize how trademark works, but that is trademark law. I would start looking for another birthday present, or thinking up a new non-infringing domain name.

[Shak]

If it was 100% for a non-commercial project as a joke to get your friend a car, than in that case find a friendly journalist.

I can see quite some story there, as Joe Public gets to read about how "John" who loves "BMW" has been threatened by "BMW" in this instance.

Domain Lawyers some times can be absolutely crazy people, and common sense doesn't come into it.

Shak

[eskipii]

the person who its for is a journalist...

not sure if to just drop it or do it...