FirstStep.com: 7 Trademarks and At Auction: Is it a Good Buy

Posted on August 4, 2008

The domain firststep.com is currently at auction at NameJet.com.

I have to admitt its a pretty cool name and myself along with 143 other people have a starting bid on it.

The price is currently $2,800 with the auction ending tomorrow.

Doing a quick check I found 7 live trademarks for the term, not counting 2 with a hyphen “first-step” and 2 with the word spelled numerically “1st step”.

So the question is what does everyone think of the domain and does the precence of several trademarks make the domain too high risk?

For sure anyone bidding on the domain better budget another 6K+ for fighting a dispute which is sure to come.

8 thoughts on “FirstStep.com: 7 Trademarks and At Auction: Is it a Good Buy”

  1. No. But there are more than 7 that could challenge. Their claims though would have to leverage the stated Goods and Services use. If the new registrant buys the name and uses it for purposes outside the G&S of the registered TMs, he should be fine. Not to say he wont get a challenge, but with basic legal work, he should easily win because he would not be infringing. Good luck to the winner, its a good name and a safe one IMO.

  2. I do see potential for a TM dispute as well but believe if it is fought, the domain holder should win so long as there is not overlapping use. It is a brandable generic I think one could say and as shown by 7 TMs. I would not shy away due to the TM potential.

    As a domainer, I would be more interested in the price vs term of hold to exit at a higher windfall. I believe we underprice and definitely have not hit the big windfall as a result, but I would be a seller of this at $25,000 I am sure, maybe less so depending on where the auction goes, I would not buy over $6,000 on pure speculation…that is just on this name and my own gut though.

    At $3,000 the buyer should be fine. Will be interesting to see end value.

  3. Greg

    I expect this name will exceed $5K when the auction concludes, and it may hit the 5 figures

  4. The buyer of that domain name should be fine as long as the domain name is developed with quality website content

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