Comments on: A Pure Trademarked Generic TractorSupply.Mobi Taken In a WIPO

By: MHB

MHB — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 14:40:04 +0000

UPDATE

More Tractor domains are taken today by the same complainant in a separate ruling:

http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/decisions/html/2010/d2010-0795.html

Domains taken in this ruling are:

tractor-supply-guide.com
tractor-supply-world.com
tractorsupplycentral.com

By: pushdownautomata

pushdownautomata — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 23:25:11 +0000

@daryl: “big brother” and “these companies” (if they are successful ones) get sued all the time, for legitimate and illegitimate reasons. of course they keep the gory details to themselves, as you too no doubt would if you were sued. so we don’t see all that really happens. but if you could see their inner workings, you might see they have to live by the same “pseudo-laws” as real people. and similar to real people, in the game of business and life, they win some and they lose some, and they settle 9 times out of 10. please consider that these entities are formed of real people (who depend on the entity to support them) just like “domainers” are real people (who depend only on themselves, or maybe their parents if of the teenage variety). each is admirable in their own right. but only to the extent each stays “within the walls”.

trademark systems are not without their flaws.
but should we fault anyone for using these systems?
there are certainly “domainers” who acquire tm’s for their domains. likely after they realise the domains’ value for advertising. but nothing is to say the tm’s could not be acquired earlier.

tangent time…

we often see domain acquisitions referred to as “speculative”. are tm’s “speculative”?
consider that tm’s are often applied for in very early stages. many of them prove to be worth nothing in the long term as businesses move along unpredictable paths. these tm’s simply are never used. their worth is questionable. some are abandoned.

maybe one could analogise this to all those non-producing domains in many a profilic domainer’s portfolio.

the systems are not perfectly efficient. speculation is often inaccurate. but we still use the systems, and we still speculate.

By: Daryl

Daryl — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 16:14:16 +0000

This has already been lost to big brother last year.

Remember Free Credit Report Dot Com?

Yeah, that is a trademark, and if you have anything about a “free credit report” you will get sued.

That is because, this shit is a fraud to begin with. It’s just pseudo-law, which is just as bad as pseudo-religion (all religion) because people lose their lives to these companies after they sue for $100s of thousands of dollars to send a message. And it usually happens to poor college students.

Lesson to the young: Do not try to escape our 4-foot high walls.

By: pushdownautomata

pushdownautomata — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 07:05:17 +0000

it seems some are taking issue with what the trademark office has granted. i think this is a separate issue from the question of whether the domain registration was proper.

it would be interesting if tm owners had to run the risk of their tm being voided each time they sought to assert it via udrp. but this is not the case. the mark could be extremely weak (perhaps it never should have been granted), but does that mean a udrp claim should fail?

this seems to be what some of you are arguing: the mark never should have been granted, therefore a domain owner should not have to honour it.

do we really expect wipo to go against the decision of a country’s ip office to grant a tm?

i see nothing wrong with this udrp result. indeed, the uspto’s wisdom is often questionable. but that’s another matter entirely. and it has little to do with wipo’s domain name arbitration panels.

By: Tim

Tim — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 23:17:52 +0000

I think the issue is with the USPTO 70 years ago for interpreting Tractor Supply as a non-generic term. The terms Tractor and Tractors for selling tractors and tractor parts would be truly generic.

But Tractor Supply is not completely generic. A competing business could just as easily adopt Tractor Equipment, Tractor Gear, Tractor Parts, Tractor Sales, etc. Combining the words makes it unique in the marketplace and able to be protected, IMNLO (In My Non-Legal Opinion).

By: RL

RL — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 07:57:32 +0000

domain guy

“Track Supply” is a generic term that noone should be allowed to trademark. There are thousands of truck suppliers in the world! Anyone has right to register any domain with this phrase without concern for trademark violation or “bad faith”. The claim is invalid and the case should be dismissed. No amount of power, influence, or money or goodwill should override the registrant’s fundamental right, regardless of his or her intent, location, etc.

By: domain guy

domain guy — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 04:23:28 +0000

well there is a few items of trademark law here that are important here. 1.complainant has a prior federal mark for tractor supply co.
so respondants mark tractorsupply.mobi is confusingly similiar to complainants superior mark 2. complaintant has 930 stores in 44 states this means complaintant is known nationwide AND LOCALLY RESPONDANT HAS NO LOCAL RIGHTS COMPLAINTS RIGHTS ARE SUPERIOR.3. complaintant has spent dollars to be known the prior length of the mark registered and the size of the ad budget is revelant.4. the key is the registered mark tractor supply to the left of the dot. the .mobi is irrevelant in trademark domain name manuel.5. it is irrevelant complaintant did not use the website all that matters is that the complaintant used the mark and did not abandond the mark tractor supply.so this so called generic term has prior registration constructionnationwiderights and continous usage.in the trademark world respondant is using the same class earning or going to earn profit off complaintants goodwill. could procede to federalcourtbut would bear the burden of proof and would pay all legal fees if respondant lost…to high a threshold to cross.

By: MHB

MHB — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 22:13:53 +0000

John

Tractor supply, camping supply, restaurant supply, general store, trial lawyers the list goes on and on, seen thousands of these in my life

How can some one own a yellow pages category?

By: Mr T

Mr T — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 20:16:25 +0000

This is probably a little off topic, but rulings like these makes me wonder what companies like the Portalis Group are thinking. As most of you are aware of they bought Business.TV for a juicy $100k. There is a trademark in the US -> “Business TV”.

As far as I see it – “Business.TV” and “Business TV” are not the same marks. They may be close, but they’re not identical. Fact is that TV in the trademark (Business TV) means Television, .TV in the domain (Business.TV) stands for Tuvalu.

What is clear to me is that US TM’s don’t rule the world. US TM’s cover everything inside the US borders – that’s about it. Portalis is a german company so they should be “off limits” in terms of the US panels stupidity, theoretically speaking.

Then again I wouldn’t be suprised if a panel in the US court system one day orders Portalis to transfer the domain to the TM owner. Portalis should register a TM in the madrid protocol to be on the safe side.

I think domainers should start to look at domain trademark registrations, in any goods or services class for that matter. Domain TM’s would mark your ground when the big companies tag along and try to run you over. Fight the stupid panel and court systemes and beat them in their own backyard

By: RL

RL — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 18:03:41 +0000

John Berryhill misses the point here. He should now better what “tractors” are and that even “Tractor Supply Company”, no matter how famous and how close it may be, should not claim exclusive use to the term “Tractor Supply”.

It is interesting that the complainant has .com, .org, but .info appears to belongs to a competitor Tractor Parts Inc, and not to the Tractor Supply Company since 2002.