With all the news yesterday about the ridiculous UDRP decision on ADO.com, I read a comment on DNW.com that I thought was very interesting. The point made by commenter RP may require people to rethink whether all these logos are needed to sell very short names like three and four letter .coms.
As Andrew Allemann pointed out, part of the discussion that motivated these 3 panelists to rule against Francois Carrillo centered on logos.
From the article:
Another bad claim that was accepted by the panel was that the Ado.com logo was similar to that of the bus company. While both logos are red and include the same letters (for obvious reasons), there is little similarity.
The complainant pointed to other supposed instances of logos on Catchy.com that were similar to logos of trademarks. It seems that the complainant cherry-picked these. Even at that, it did a poor job. Consider this “evidence” of similar logos:
Then I read the comment from RP
R P says
Seems like one should stay clear of advertising domains for sale in graphical form if other mark holders exist with same word or words. Some of the complainants arguments are similiar to Lanham Act. There was a notable court case back in the 1980s in Texas, Two Pesos vs. Taco Cabana that it reminds me of. Don’t agree with WIPO panel here though.
This is an excellent point in my opinion. Because this is a game, never kid yourself it’s corporations and celebrities vs domain investors. It has been going on since the beginning of the commercial Internet. This case is getting a lot of buzz and will get a lot more if Francois takes this to court to save his asset.
Other companies and their counsel will look for any nook or cranny they can find, someone will say, “hmmm ADO.com lost in part due to the logo, we have found the domain we are targeting has a similar situation.”
There are plenty of 3L and 4L.com listed at places like BrandBucket.com and Namerific.com.
You don’t need a logo to sell these names and it might just make sense to discontinue that practice.
Now I know many will push back with screw these panelists and companies, if I want a logo I will have a logo. I just don’t think you want to give these sharks any more openings than you need to.
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