Donald Trump is coming after my domain name, claiming trademark infringement

https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/3mgce8/hong_kong_donald_trump_is_coming_after_my_domain/

by tomkwok • 11 years ago

68 22 11 years ago

jerf• 11 years ago

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• 11 years ago

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• 11 years ago

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.

gist3• 11 years ago

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

mikeash4• 11 years ago

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

gist3• 11 years ago

http://www.inta.org/TrademarkBasics/FactSheets/Pages/LossofT...

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

plusquamperfekt• 11 years ago

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

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1943873/

wiradikusuma• 11 years ago

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• 11 years ago

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

vinhboy• 11 years ago

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.

mikeash4• 11 years ago

When you say relevant content, do you mean about the car company? That sounds like infringement if so, and you're lucky they were satisfied with just taking the domain.

jeremysmyth• 11 years ago

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.

craigvn• 11 years ago

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• 11 years ago

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.

chrismcb2• 11 years ago

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.

Donald Trump is coming after my domain name, claiming trademark infringement

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