Is Comcast A Cybersquatter? A Law Suit Says Yes: The Case Of Fancast.com
A company Fancaster, Inc. sued Comcast (which has agreed to buy NBC, awaiting regulatory approval) in federal court in New Jersey back in 2008 over the domain Fancast.com under the Lanham Act, for trademark infringement, false designation of origin and unfair competition, trade name infringement and cybersquatting.
A court hearing was held yesterday on the case where the court granted the Plaintiff’s motion to amend their complaint, to seek damages for FanCast.com VOD product which seems to have been added since the original complaint was filed, but the facts of the case caught my eye.
Here are the relevant facts laid out by the court:
“Plaintiff has provided its products and service under its trade name, Fancaster, Inc. and its service mark, FANCASTER.
Defendant provides cable television, internet, and digital voice products and services throughout the country.
In July 2006, Plaintiff launched the web site www.fancaster.com, which provides content related to “sports, sports fans, broadcasting” and other related information.
Plaintiff alleges that Defendant has been aware of Plaintiff’s business and its intellectual property rights since as early as July 2006 when Plaintiff’s President, Mr. Kreuger, discussed possible business relationships with Defendant.
So fancaster.com according to the court documents went to Comcast to discuss an idea using Fancaster and apperately sold them on the idea and Comcast goes out an immediately registers or acquires the domain Fancast.com to do it themselves.
Nice.
Moreover according to the lawsuit did Comcast go out and register Fancast.com but the also registered typos of Fancaster which was trademark.
The suit alleges that Comcast also registered: www.phancast.com, www.fancas.com, www.fancast.com, www.fancastic.com,
So a few lessons to be learned here.
Large corporations, that are the first to complain about domainers infringing on their intellectual properties will engage in the same conduct when it suits their needs.
Cover you ass. Corporations still don’t see the forest for the trees when it comes to domains. To have a business and trademark branded around the term Fancaster.com and to have no secured the shorter natural version of their brand is plain silly. Fancaster should have secured fancast. fancasts.com Fancasters.com and fancasting.com
Neither company has apparently learned their lesson either. Neither Fancaster.com or Comcast own the domain Fancasts.com, that honor belongs to Buy Domains.com
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fancast will be absorded into comcast after lots and lots of legal fees – this means the cost of Comcast subscriptions will go up even further – the end
fancast.com is pretty high in the ranking. it is not about the name per se, as about the upside and opportunity.
my understanding is VOD is highly important to the film industry and their partners. that is, VOD has through the years proved to be quite a successful offering. there is continued demand, even now, what with internet video.
and cable companies like the one here have obviously had the monopoly on delivery of VOD.
so…
I especially enjoyed the “cover you ass.” That meme always makes me chuckle.
“Fancasts.com, that honor belongs to Buy Domains.com”
Comcast can buy it for $ 12k from BD.
Why Didn’t Comcast buy it on the drop 23 months ago?
I don’t understand why IP owners are not active bidders?
It would be cheaper than using IP lawyers to secure domains
thru legal action.
I occasionally notice a few TM agencies in the auctions.
“I don’t understand why IP owners are not active bidders? It would be cheaper than using IP lawyers to secure domains thru legal action.”
Very often, that is the point. Legal departments like to inflate their budgets as they are paid on billable hours.
Even if it’s cheaper to bid ($12k does not sound cheaper to me; I certainly wouldn’t charge anywhere near that much for a UDRP), do you really want to be seen as acquiescing to the behavior? I mean if you genuinely believe that you have a legal right that is being compromised by someone else, obviously. If it’s on the borderline, maybe bidding makes a lot more sense. Certainly there’s a middle ground of “tough” negotiation, where it’s clear somebody’s squatting illegally but it’s cheaper to settle for $x before filing a UDRP. Participating in the bidding process lends an air of legitimacy that a trademark owner is probably not going to be comfortable with.
Some (many?) use federal court which is more costly than udrp.
Just because BD is quoting $ 12k does not mean they wouldn’t settle
for much less.
Meyer
But other than Comcast that owns the trademark on Fancast, it would be very risky for anyone else to hold that domain, which reduces the domains value
As the saying goes you only get as much justice as you can afford