Please comment on this scenario
A domain was bought, developed on, but did not go live yet; for a hobbyist content-website.
A year later, a company was created and trademarked with a very similar name to the domain name registered above, in a different country, in a completely different subject area to the hobbyist. (example, Astrophysics vs cooking)
Who has rights over the domain purchased a year before the trademark/company.
Regards
L
The devil is in the detail, I'm afraid. If the company cannot show that they had rights in the domain at the time it was registered this may weaken their case in certain jurisdictions (if the domain in question was a .co.uk domain, for example, Nominet would be less likely to view this as an abusive registration.) Other registries may take a different view. Broadly speaking, though, if there are no other significant details to be disclosed I'd expect the original registrant to stand a good chance of keeping the domain. However, never underestimate the power of a company with deep pockets and expensive lawyers, but I don't need to remind anyone here of that -)
Jamie
Thanks jamie, a bit more..
It seems the company is calling and marketing its products 'abc' as a shorter version, as well as 'abc-def'. Yet, 'abc' is not trademarked, only 'abc-def' as a whole.
It is my belief that, in order for a company to call their products a particular brand, that specific brand must be trademarked. If you want to call a product 'abc', you must specifically trademark that name, particularly if the shorter version is very generic. For that reason, the hobbyist is legally safe to hold onto that domain, technically?
Any thoughts?
Thanks
I'm not aware of that particular requirement but I'm certainly no expert in this area. I expect it's something you'd need to take legal advice on to get a definitive answer.
Jamie