I knew it was bound to happen sooner or later. I never intended to infringe on anyone’s trademark. I am not sure that I have. But just last week I received a letter demanding that I stop using a domain that I own, (not this one) because the first five letters of my 12 letter domain name are trademarked.
The company is not a large company that anyone would have known about, the characters they claim as theirs alone are a common word and a common acronym. Most people would assume they are in the public domain, much the same as I am assuming that “Webmaster” and “Blog” are in the public domain. (If not I am going to get them trademarked as soon as I finish writing this.)
It just so happens that this is one of my most successful domains, and not because of the 5 trademarked characters. In fact, I had recently changed the name of the blog for better SEO. The blog name contains none of the trademarked characters, it is just the domain.
If I had the money to hire a lawyer I might have a decent chance of defending my claim to the domain. I mean seriously, 5 letters our of 12? The company claims that their customers have been confused and have thought that my blog is related to the company. I find that hard to believe.
Searching the internet I have found that generally there are two things you should do when you receive a cease and desist letter. The first is to take it seriously, the second is to hire an attorney.
But the reality is, I have no money to fight this. I will try and appeal to the company’s sense of fairness. Maybe I can receive some small compensation for the loss of income and hard work. But I doubt it. Because I lack the resources to defend my rights, they will be trampled.
I bring this up here, not because I am asking for money, but because I think there is a problem with the system, and I am not sure how it can be fixed. It does not seem right to me, that just because someone else is bigger and has more money than me, they can take what is mine and there is nothing I can do about it. I know this has happened to many people in much bigger ways. It is not like I am losing a major source of income, or my life’s work. Just my very first domain that made a little money from adsense and other ad sales.
So bloggers everywhere beware. And if you have any ideas about what can be done please let me know in the comments.