Non-US Address Results in WIPO Loss Protection!

The FirstQuote.com WIPO Case Decision (domain kept) and its significant issues & deciding factors:

In our view, the most significant aspect of this case and perhaps in every other case ever presented to WIPO is this statement extracted from the case below: Moreover, the Respondent is based in Hong Kong, SAR of China, while protection of the Complainant’s 1STQUOTE-Marks and the Complainant’s business are limited to the United States of America.

That certainly is an incredibly powerful reason to have your domains registered at a non-USA address!

More… the respondent denies the complainant’s contentions. Respondent alleges that the phrase “First Quote” is the featured tagline for thousands of insurance, financial and legal websites and can be heard in numerous ads from agencies asking to “come in today for your first quote”. Upon the Respondent’s allegations, the disputed domain name is comprised of a generic term, which may be used in hundreds of ways, and the Complainant is attempting to leverage the domain name from its owner by using the UDRP forum to reverse hijack the domain.

The Respondent further states that there are 10 active trademarks for FIRST QUOTE in the US, that there is no proof that the Complainant is the sole owner of and creator of the phrase “first quote” and that the disputed domain name was first registered on January 15, 1997, 6 years prior to the Complainant’s claim of “first use” of the 1STQUOTE-trademarks and even before the Complainant was established, which also shows that the phrase had already been popular before complainant tried to claim it.

The Respondent further argues that he never intended to act in bad faith. Furthermore, according to the Respondent’s allegations, the Complainant has no website, brand, domain name, or anything else associated with “first quote” (rather than 1STQUOTE), and the Complainant does not even own the domain name <1stquote.com>. The Respondent also requests the Complainant should be fined for Reverse Domain Hijacking.

With regard to the Respondent’s bad faith registration and use, the Complainant contends that the Respondent registered the disputed domain name with actual or at least constructive notice of the Complainant’s 1STQUOTE-Marks and was using the disputed domain name in bad faith primarily to intentionally attract for financial gain Internet users to the Respondent’s web site by misleading and confusing Internet users who are searching for the Complainant’s website but, merely, misspell or mistype the brand name of the Complainant’s 1STQUOTE on-line application processing service. Respondent has denied these assertions and provided evidence of substantial third parties’ use of the term “first quote”, including the provision of services similar to those of the Complainant.

It seems to be more likely than not to this Panel, the Respondent acquired the disputed domain name, as he contends because of its meaning and because of the substantial third party use of the underlying words, and not with a view to the Complainant and its 1STQUOTE-Marks. The Complainant’s 1STQUOTE-Marks are not used identically in the disputed domain name but with a different spelling, and they enjoy less than average distinction, if any distinction at all, as they are made up of two generic words which are commonly used together.

Moreover, the Respondent is based in Hong Kong, SAR of China, while protection of the Complainant’s 1STQUOTE-Marks and the Complainant’s business are limited to the United States of America.As a result, on the balance of evidence, the Complainant has failed in this Panel’s assessment to prove that the disputed domain name was registered in bad faith, i.e. with the Complainant in mind.

We would appreciate any comments you have about trademarks and WIPO cases – which feedback we could also add to our web site since we are actively looking for personal feedback about trademark issues to expand the web site, which site you can visit by going to Internet Intellectual Property now, or clicking-on the image below. Thank you.

Chinese CC Domain Registrations Decline by 39%

Noticed on the newly redesigned igoldrush.com web site registrations of Chinese country code (.CN) domain names has declined a very high 39%. That is not too surprising in view of the loss of domain registrars who were once selling .cn names (before recent strict Chinese government domain restrictions were put imto effect), plus some other issues.

We owned ony one dot-cn domain, a name which we owned for many years. However, what with the comparatively high yearly renewal fees and its low traffic the Chnese domain- name was not worth renewing again this year.

I always wondered why Chinese people would actually type-in an English word followed by the .cn extension? I believe English use by the public is not nearly as common in China vs Europe and many other nations of the world. Can anyone confirm that with some statistics or opinons?

Is It Still Possible to Register Domains with Value?

Is it possible to freshly register domain names of value (which may not necessarily make you rich) but have some value, and can make you at least a bit of money?

Rarely a week passes where we do not stumble upon at least a few unreg’d names which I am sure would get natural traffic plus search traffic too. We can’t possibly register them all (there are simply too many good ones) but when we do register the available domains there are often typein visitors to the temporary webpage right away.

Anyone else run across good targeted keyword unregistered domains lately?

How GoDaddy Captured a 50% Market Share

I just read about how GoDaddy recently achieved a 50% domain market share, which internet people are saying is an amazing accomplishment. I am far from being surprised about that.

My reasons to expect their great success are (A) GoDaddy.com has a strong combination of excellent marketing skills, (B) very large ad budget, including substantial money for high price Super Bowl ads, (C) very diverse and extensive offering of additional products and services for sale, (D) including various web hosting products/services, and something you may not think much about but important to small domain buyers and small business owners is their overall (E) good 24X7 support with short on-hold wait times, often no hold time, all combined with a (F) powerful upselling program.

I am sure GoDaddy will soon go well beyond capturing a 50% market share, with the next big level being my prediction GD will eventually capture a 75% market share and dominate the space. hmmmm…..does GoDaddy have stock we can invest in?

Newly Developed Family Child Center Website

This week we completed a new small web site about child-care and family child care centers. Getting good and responsible child care for your kids is very important to both the children and parents.

By the way, we need more content for this new website. Do you have anything to contribute about child care, kids, rasing kids, children’s entertainmen, etc, (possibly family experience with childcare) that we could publish on the site for everyone’s benefit?

A content contribution would be greatly appreciated. If you choose to contribute some general knowledge to the site it does not need to be professionally written. Either long or short is ok. You name may be used or not published if you wish.

You can review the new site by clicking-on the image:

Getting a Trademark Hassle which takes Forever

I finally got my federal trademark application approved by the USPTO. A very long and tedious trademark process which required lots of work, hassle, time and fees, taking nearly 2 years from start to finish.

During the ordeal I even had to deal with a lawfirm who filed a Trademark Trail & Review Board opposition lawsuit against my use on the B.S. grounds it was similar to a clients domain name (which involved different words and also not even a registered mark). Lots of other stuff happened too which I won’t go into at this time.

Here is the long chain of events copied from the uspto.gov website:

2009-11-20 – Law Office Registration Review Completed

2009-11-19 – Allowed for Registration – Principal Register (SOU accepted)

2009-11-16 – Statement of use processing complete

2009-11-15 – Amendment to Use filed

2009-11-15 – TEAS Statement of Use Received

2009-06-09 – Extension 1 granted

2009-05-21 – Extension 1 filed

2009-06-09 – Case Assigned To Intent To Use Paralegal

2009-05-21 – TEAS Extension Received

2008-11-25 – Noa Mailed – SOU Required From Applicant

2008-10-15 – TTAB Release Case To Trademarks

2008-10-15 – Opposition terminated for Proceeding

2008-10-15 – Opposition dismissed for Proceeding

2008-07-10 – Opposition instituted for Proceeding

2008-07-10 – Opposition papers filed

2008-06-10 – Published for opposition

2008-05-21 – Notice of publication

2008-05-05 – Law Office Publication Review Completed

2008-05-02 – Approved for Pub – Principal Register (Initial exam)

2008-05-02 – Previous allowance count withdrawn

2008-04-28 – Withdrawn From Pub – Og Review Query

2008-04-15 – Law Office Publication Review Completed

2008-04-15 – Assigned To LIE

2008-04-09 – Approved for Pub – Principal Register (Initial exam)

2008-04-09 – Examiner’s Amendment Entered

2008-04-09 – Notification Of Examiners Amendment E-Mailed

2008-04-09 – Examiners amendment e-mailed

2008-04-09 – Examiners Amendment -Written

2008-03-31 – Assigned To Examiner

2008-01-06 – Notice Of Design Search Code And Pseudo Mark Mailed

2008-01-05 – New Application Entered In Tram

Pros & Cons of using a Foreign Domain Registrar

Domain name registrar and parking provider Fabulous is a top-notch choice and industry leader with excellent prices, benefits and great support. However, the liability avoidance reason mentioned by Rick at Rick Latona’s site for using a non-US based registrar such as Fabulous.com seems to be a double-edge sword in that I have been told by a well known domain attorney that it could be a big negative. The reason it can become a major issue is apparently due to the dispute rules the plaintiff can file a lawsuit either where the registrant lives *or* where the registrar is located. If they know you are in the US and the registrar is in Australia (in the case of Fabulous.com) and they are a large corporation they may have a law firm or business presence (possibly an office) in AU where they could file suit there instead of in the US thus making you travel all the way down-under to AU for court appearances and also a need for you to hire an AU IP Attorney at high cost.

Jets.com was a great bargain at only $375,000

To someone who may not be experienced with domain name values the internet domain name Jets.com recently selling for 375k must seem like a ton of money. If it was purchased to try and take advantage of the New York Jets football team as was once commonly believed (until the actual buyer became known) and maybe to run some sports advertising on it and make a few bucks from running PPC ads (and taking a chance on a big trademark lawsuit or WIPO case), then I agree that 375k is a lot to pay.

However, the name was purchased by an end-user firm who rents jets and other airplanes according to what I see on the website today. Since jets both rent and sell for big and small fortunes the price was incredbly low. I believe just one sale or a few 25-hour rentals of a corporate jet would probably recover the domain purchase price in profit or commissions. After the first few transactions take place from the website traffic (and its typeins) it will be all gravy for a lifetime for the lucky owner and and 100% profit with every future airplane transaction. So the price was in actuality a tremendous bargain.

The new jets.com web site offers these prices: U.S. 2009 Pricing: 25 HOURS CARD MEMBERSHIP. Aircraft Price. Hawker 400 XP $114,500; Hawker 800 $125,000; Hawker 1000 $149,000; Gulfstream III $189,000; Citation X $189,000; Challenger 601/604 $199,000; Gulfstream IV $279,000.

This is what Yahoo! Answers says about the costs of jets: “Best Answer – Chosen by Voters: (buying and owning a jet) is very expensive considering all the FAA rules on rebuilding engines every so many hours whether they need it or not and a pilot is gonna cost you in excess of $100,000.00 per year and then you have the hangar charges which are like $3,000 a month, and then jet fuel which was $3.79 a gallon and then the insurance is expensive . There is an old saying at my rolls royce dealership – if you need to ask the price or the gas mileage you can’t afford it and I have found over the years how true !!!!! Byy the way cheap starter jets can be bought used for like $300,000.00 and up whereas the new ones like a 4 seater are probably going to run 1.5 million dollars or higher to start.”

Next Big Thing in Your Cell Phone, PC & The Web

Regarding the next big thing on the near horizon, in my opinion I feel that Live Apps are going to be a real big wave.

I thought I would post about Live Apps and Apple Computer. There are also several other large live app corporate players in addition to Apple.

There are already over 100,000 Live Apps with more than 65,000 worldwide Live App developers and programmers.

Apple now owns Appstore.com which domain registration information appears to have changed last month (it seems the domain name was previously owned by SalesForce.com)

Click for AppStore.com Domain Name Whois

Click for Live App Store Google results

Click for Apps Store Google results

Click for App Store Google (an amazing 34 million search results)

Lower Domain/Website Income vs Higher Costs

Most everyone in the domain name and website development industry is reporting sharp declines of from 65% to as much as 85% in Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising Revenues compared to a few years ago. The income declines appear to go well beyond the overall decline in the economy, with several other factors involved in the big declines.

Making matters even worse is the future scenario of sharply higher cost domain name yearly renewals since it looks like the domain registry operators will be able to soon charge whatever they want for yearly name renewals, with non-fixed and non-regulated pricing looming on the dark horizon.

The double edge sword of low income combined with expected greater costs could easily put an end to the domain name industry as we now know it. Comments on this bleak outlook are welcome…

Going to Websites via Web-Browser or Search Box

At one of the domain forum boards one of the well-known forum moderators Biggedon was talking about so called “direct navigation” which he said is “mostly used when you know or think you know the exact url of a website which has the product or service you want.” He went on to say “however, I see many of my co-workers who type their search into their “web browsers” search box, rather than using the browsers address bar window, then they click from a list of links the SE produces. The culture of “address bar searchers” is fading fast to those who use the browser window to search, especially with the search-engine companies urging you to search thru their service saying Google this, Yahoo that, Ask this, Bing…

Agree to what Don said above to a good degree. In addition, I don’t believe the likely scenario of web-surfers migrating somewhat from web-browser typeins to search box type-ins is really much of a negative since a search window type-in (assuming the relevant domain extension is added) is in my opinion still considered to be a typein and almost as valuable (though some experts may not completely agree).

My family members are good examples as they most always typein full url’s including the extension (usually either .com or .org) into the search box instead of the browser url window. In fact, I sometimes do that too and do it even more lately. With that said, not really the whole story because the most valuable and best part of the story is that if you typein the full url in the Google search box to a large degree and much of the time your site immediately resolves.

However, occasionally for some odd reason (perhaps if was recently indexed or maybe ranked very low) the url will be listed in the search results instead of instantly resolving (still OK because the web siite url will be on the clickable list, frequently shown in #1 position, or ranked high). I believe for these 2 scenarios to work the url needs to in fact be at least indexed in the SE.

That is why you should not always rely on the search-engines finding you but should also submit your URL direct to the search engines. Yahoo makes it difficult to submit URL’s since you need to first have a Yahoo! account. However, Bing and Google make is real easy to submit your URL’s (no account required). Here is the link for Google URL Submission, and a link so you may also submit URL to Bing.com

Type-in address in to web browser