Habrus to the rescue?

[habmeister]

I recently purchased the domain name: www.vancouverticketservice.com and pointed it to my own site www.coast2coasttickets.com

i got a letter from the lawyer of vancouver ticket and tour service saying they own the trademarks vancouver ticket.com vancouver ticket and tour service and vancouver ticket service.

i'm sure that someone on this board may have went through this.

i'm a vancouver ticket service or broker. i think that the domain name while may be similar to the name of the other company it is also descriptive of what i do. i don't want to fight it out in court, but i also know that lawyers send out letters that most times scare people into giving in to whatever their letter says.

if however i have a lot more basis than they do i'll fight it.

anybody know anything about this?

as a side note the owner of vancouver ticket service is a "broker" who took me to france as my first oversees trip to work the france 1998 world cup. i "was" a guy who trusted everyone and believed everyone was good at their core, well 3 weeks into it he ripped me off for all of my money, my cell phone, my plane ticket home (which he tried to get me to buy back from him) as well as my rail pass. i was broke, without my phone so my customers couldn't contact me, i could no longer travel to the games so i had to sneak on trains, hide in washrooms (no joke) and had to beg the travel agent to re-issue me a ticket to get home as he had purchased them with his credit card.

in the end i've never trusted anyone fully again, and he laughed about it all the time, yes there were "things" i could have gotten done, but i think telling him everytime i see him "thanks for training me, i take money out of your pocket everyday, i wouldn't know the ticket business like i do without your help"

he's a piece of Saperlipopette, and i'd love to keep this domain name as a big &$%* you!

[The New Guy]

A quick glance at the CIPO site (http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/app/cipo/trademarks/search/tmSearch.do?language=eng) suggests that he doesn't have the trademark on anything resembling Vancouver ticket service (I checked both that and Vancouver ticket and came up with nothing). So, for the time being you can probably tell him to shove it with impunity (note: you probably don't want to tell him to shove it - a more in depth search would probably be in line before doing something like that).

However, it also might behoove you to try and register it. Things get a little dicey here, because once you tell him he doesn't own it he might actually go out and try to register it. Then you get into all kinds of fun stuff with which I have no experience. If you register it first then there's no problem.

[habmeister]

thanks where do i go to register a trademark like that, i should do my own business as well. the lawyer said they had the trademarks, but i had a feeling that was just lawyer bullSaperlipopette.

[The New Guy]

The CIPO site explains how to do it fairly clearly. It probably involves lawyers and lots of fees (I think it costs a minimum of $550) but I think they have an online form to at least start the process.

strategis.ic.gc.ca/sc_mrksv/cipo/tm/tm_main-e.html

That's the CIPO Trade Marks main page and has most of the basic stuff anyways.

strategis.ic.gc.ca/sc_mrksv/cipo/trademark-filing/application/engdoc/index_agent_e.html

That explains how to register, including the online registration!

Cheers!

[habmeister]

thats awesome, thanks a lot, i think its worth the money, i'll get the ball rolling on it later this week or next and let you know how it goes via pm.

[Deleted]

Ha, then you can counter sue or something...or however our legal system works.

[HABsurd]

habmeister said:

I recently purchased the domain name: www.vancouverticketservice.com and pointed it to my own site www.coast2coasttickets.com

i got a letter from the lawyer of vancouver ticket and tour service saying they own the trademarks vancouver ticket.com vancouver ticket and tour service and vancouver ticket service.

he's a piece of Saperlipopette, and i'd love to keep this domain name as a big &$%* you!

Hardly a surprise here but the other company's lawyers are (probably purposefully) confusing very different concepts: Domain name registration and trademarks. They follow very different rules and governed by very different bodies.

I will try and post more about this later. There is absolutely no reason for you to give up your domain name registration. Of course, you can offer to sell the domain name to them.