question Need Advice ... promoteyourself.ca vs promote-yourself.ca

[maurixius]

Hi all

In 2008 I filed for a trademark and I acquired the domain in a 2009 auction. I don't want to disclose the domain name but i will give you a similar example so you know where I am coming from.

Few days later after the auction closed I was contacted by a company claiming the had this domain before and they did not renew it and demanding of me to transfer it to them for free or else there would be consequences.

I brought up the situation to my trademark agent at that time and she advised me to ignore them. Couple days passed when I received another email from them asking me how much I wanted for it which I never replied to. My guess is they did a search and saw that I had filed a trademark almost a year before I got the domain.

The domain I acquired in the auction was for example promoteyourself.com
(I own.com/.net/.org/.biz/.info/mobi/.us/.ca)

This company then went and registered for example promote-yourself.ca in 2012

My Trademark has been abandoned since I didn't follow through due to some circumstances in life.

Do I have something legit here; if so I would appreciate any advice and how I should go about it.


Thanks

 

[promo]

Whats the question again?

 

[Bullock]

The company who previously owned the domain name "promoteyourself.com" have/had a real activity based on the name Promote Yourself?

IMO, in the presence of real activity, such as consulting, shop, industry, ecc, exists a trademark de facto. In this case the domain name composed of generic words can be used but not in the same sector.
The concept is to avoid troubles with distinctiveness!

 

[bluemeteor]

ppl tend to pay big buck for no hyphen version.
I think promote-yourself sometimes may be good for seo when google couldn't tell apart the two words.

 

[maurixius]

Whats the question again?

Hi ... my question is can that company use the same domain i have but with a hyphen in between words for the same domain extension which is .ca (i do own 8 extensions in total including .com)
I think "Bullock" has nailed!

 

[maurixius]

Also if I decide to sell them my domains with all 8 extensions as a package deal,how should I approach them? They have already approached me in 2009 right after I won the domain.