According to SeattlePI.com Microsoft has filed three lawsuits in the past two weeks against people registering domain names using the Bing trademark.
All the 3 cases, were filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington.
According to the article many of the domain subject to the suits either redirected to PPC pages, to non-resolving sites or registrar placeholders.
Microsoft apparently doesn’t care if the page goes to PPC, doesn’t resolve or goes to a Godaddy place holder.
If your using “bing” in your domain your subject to suit.
The lawsuits seek injunctions and monetary damages, and asks the court to order the domain names canceled or forfeited to Microsoft.
SeattlePI.com interviewed one the defendants, Mark Vrabel of Elgin, Ill., which told them that “he was unaware of the lawsuit against him and that he registered the domains for a client who was planning to start a network of adult websites. The business fell through and the URLs are not used, he said.”
“I have not engaged in anything with these domains, other than possibly registering them,” Vrabel said.
“If I registered them, so be it. But I never intended anything with it.”
The domains involved with the suit against Vrabel include barebing.com, bingdate.com, bingkinky.com, buffbing.com, pimpbing.com and many more not suitable for print. Today, most of them go to a blank page or GoDaddy, which provides domain-registration services.”
“If somebody called then and said, ‘Hey, I want those domains,’ they can have them,” Vrabel said. “If they have any issues, all they have to do is contact me … instead of pulling a shot like this.”
“I certainly would never squat,” Vrabel said.
This is a good reminder to all that not every trademark holder is simply going to send a C & D letter when it finds an infriging domain especially when someone registers multiple domains, sometime they just go and file suit
How about bingsuck and bingcherry.com?
Bull
You know the answer to that
If you own bingcherry.com and its an actual site that goes to a site about the fruit or the color your fine.
If its a parked page going to Microsoft products or goes to a registrar placeholder that has links back to Microsoft its going to be an issue.
Lets not overlook that these people had MULTIPLE infringing domains
It should not and can not be as simple as it sounds… if you’re holding allegedly infringing domains the complainant files action and you are labeled wrong. If we allow it to be like that, we all lose in the long run.
The article says he has a lot, but didn’t park them and didn’t put them to use. It only identifies “barebing.com, bingdate.com, bingkinky.com, buffbing.com, pimpbing.com” which are no less arguable than BingCherry, imho.
Last I heard BadaBing was a very popular term. Does Microsoft own that, too?
Microsoft should look like the bad guy here. We all should highlight how MS is the bad guy here. We probably all know that every domain is subject to someone’s claim of infringement, and we need such claims to be manageable, or the little/medium guy is toast.
John A.
BadaBing is not just a popular term…..it’s a virtual American landmark & institution
Cheers !