Publish this letter on your domain and point at the evil "big co"
Ask HN: Own .com for 7 years, a new company trademarked my name registered .NET
81–90 of 293 posts
Re: Ask HN: Own .com for 7 years, a new company trademarked my name registered .NET
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t question your motives in this instance, but I always pay extra attention when someone’s advice is to hire them or someone like them. Obviously, “hire a lawyer,” is sometimes right. But if I hired a lawyer every time I was told to, I would be out hundreds of hours of billing fees. Anecdotally, I’ve never fucked anything up royally. That doesn’t mean that I made the right decision, but is something I strive for…
I have no skin in this game. I just have experience. The outcome here could be that OP loses their domain name. If they just want to give it up, they don't have to hire an attorney. Easy answer. But if they do want to keep the domain name, when paid opposing counsel comes knocking at the door, they need to lawyer up, plain and simple.
Even if they want to give it up, the agreement will likely have representations and warranties (see part about any known/future claims) which OP should not just sign without an attorney reading it over. The agreement will surely be written in a way that is very favorable to the other party.
Re: Ask HN: Own .com for 7 years, a new company trademarked my name registered .NET
#83Every answer in this thread is wrong except for "hire an attorney and work with them to figure out what the best option for you is." Do not follow any "free legal advice" from HN -- and I'm speaking as an actual licensed attorney.
Bullshit. Knowing your rights, reading the law and discussing it is a perfectly fine thing to do for everybody.
> Knowing your rights, reading the law and discussing it is a perfectly fine thing to do for everybody.
Sure. I am a former law student (in mid career when I did that), worked in legislative office, spent a large part of my career as a government program analyst that did lots of legal/compliance analysis, and spend huge amounts of reading and discussing the law, legal rights, etc.
But when people have an immediate concrete legal problem with substantial property or other interests at stake, whatever other discussion of my understanding of the involved law involved might be interesting, the only correct advice in ~99.997% [0] of circumstances from anyone who is not a lawyer, or even just not the person involved’s lawyer on the matter, is to get someone who is your lawyer (at least for the length of a consultation) review and advise.
[0] there are situations where the practical context is such that the law and legal advice are irrelevant, though they are quite exceptional.
Re: Ask HN: Own .com for 7 years, a new company trademarked my name registered .NET
#84Every answer in this thread is wrong except for "hire an attorney and work with them to figure out what the best option for you is." Do not follow any "free legal advice" from HN -- and I'm speaking as an actual licensed attorney.
Do not respond to the letter. Do not engage. Do not alter your website. Do not hire a lawyer. The fastest way to enter into a legal battle is to hire an attorney and start engaging.
Seems like an excellent way to lose your domain in a default judgement
Re: Ask HN: Own .com for 7 years, a new company trademarked my name registered .NET
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Spending $300-1000 on a consult every time I might need one Actually I’ve been surprised to find that many times even high priced attorneys are usually willing to spend 20-30 minutes+ giving you some general advice before even retaining them. I’ve gotten very valuable advice this way several times at no cost.
This is my personal experience as well.
They need to due a little due diligence before taking you in as a client, such as assessing if your needs fall within their expertise and whether you will be a potentially profitable client. If you work as hard as you can to summarize your case to respect their time, as opposed to rambling like an incoherent crazy person, you can often get a free pointer on how to handle the case & maybe a referral to someone who is better prepared to assist you.
Re: Ask HN: Own .com for 7 years, a new company trademarked my name registered .NET
#86Congratulations! You just got an offer for a buy out.
This could be the best thing that has ever happened to you. Depending on the price and size here, very little chance / or unlucky for them to go nuclear option. The last thing they want to do is take this to court and then also lose. Devastating for them to lose and only expensive for you to lose.
Settle here and take the bonus.
How deep do their pockets look and how valuable is this domain to them / you?
0. Get lawyer and do everything through them and through their advice first.
1. Draft a response saying basically over your dead body, make it clear and obvious how likely it is they will lose, and tell them you are prepared to take this to courts for a legal judgment.
Tell them you are reasonable though and give them an option to make a serious offer for purchase at 10x whatever you value it at.
2a. Get offer, negotiate to a value of 0.25-4x (not 10x), accept, move on with your life.
2b. Get sued, win, re-offer sale at 20x. Sell domain at 8-12x.
2c. Get sued, lose, sucks.
Re: Ask HN: Own .com for 7 years, a new company trademarked my name registered .NET
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
> and I'm speaking as an actual licensed attorney. and so the racket continues
This is the equivalent of a doctor saying "if you think you have cancer, don't blindly listen to the internet and consult a doctor and I say that as a licensed medical professional". This isn't someone trying to rope someone into a racket for their own gain, it's "Our laws and legal system are a clusterfuck that varies wildly from region to region. Get a free (or at least cheap) consult instead of taking a risk tryin…
Except that it isn't cancer. It's a headache. And sure, WebMD will tell you to call a doctor in case your headache is a blood clot. But most people just take aspirin.
Re: Ask HN: Own .com for 7 years, a new company trademarked my name registered .NET
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t question your motives in this instance, but I always pay extra attention when someone’s advice is to hire them or someone like them. Obviously, “hire a lawyer,” is sometimes right. But if I hired a lawyer every time I was told to, I would be out hundreds of hours of billing fees. Anecdotally, I’ve never fucked anything up royally. That doesn’t mean that I made the right decision, but is something I strive for…
In my experience, a lawyer will also nudge you towards whichever course involves keeping a lawyer involved. They'll never tell you "if I were in your shoes, I wouldn't keep going".
They will, because they don’t want to pursue legal action where there’s little chance of them getting paid. It’s worth giving you a half-hour of their time for free to figure out if 1) there’s enough money involved, 2) the defendant can pay up in the event of a win or 3) you can pay up if you don’t win. Nothing worse than working 100 hours and not being able to collect because the defendant is “judgment-proof” (aka flat broke).
Have a home issue where the builder owes me $100k in an open-and-shut case… but there are a dozen other people in the same situation, his company has folded and he’s under indictment for fraud in an unrelated case. My lawyer advised me to just move on with my life as any chance of collecting is near-zero.
Re: Ask HN: Own .com for 7 years, a new company trademarked my name registered .NET
#89This has happened to me several times, I have never taken it seriously or put much effort into responding. I usually would go straight to the throat and very personal. Publish their letter on the domain they seek, capture all lawyer and company details and publish to site. Use opsec for phone numbers, call them at terrible hours ( at home) to discuss offers of payment. They are trying to bleed you with superior resou…
Sounds absolutely ruthless and I quite like it. Don't think I'm bold enough to do it myself but I'm always surprised how much being persistent gets you when you're talking to companies.
If one was short of time, one could always put out a tender so that several (hundred) different independent agents could speculatively contact them in order to conduct negotiations, then present you with offers that you could compare. If those agents were in turn having trouble establishing contact, they could farm out this effort to others who had more time and expertise in this area.
Re: Ask HN: Own .com for 7 years, a new company trademarked my name registered .NET
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my experience, a lawyer will also nudge you towards whichever course involves keeping a lawyer involved. They'll never tell you "if I were in your shoes, I wouldn't keep going".
I'm sorry you had such an experience. Ethical lawyers will give you the best advice they can, which often includes "you are going to end up paying me way more than what's at stake here." (This literally just happened to me as a client over a land-sale-deposit dispute.) Or, "This is a turkey of a case and you should roll over. You owe me nothing."
I have gotten that advice from lawyers. I just kept hitting up new lawyers until I found one that saw things my way. Resulted in a windfall for me.