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The Internet

What to do when your Domain is Threatened? 251

Posted by Cliff from the beating-down-the-DNS-bully dept.
ttyp0 writes "I am a student at Purdue University. Three years ago, I decided to purchase the domain PURDUEONLINE.COM and use it for whatever reason. Just recently my ISP received a letter from Purdue's Executive Vice President threatening legal action if I do not transfer ownership of my domain to the University's control. (More below.)

"My website offers free services to students, two of which are web based email and a student directory with full search capability yet Purdue claims that my domain infringes on the school's trademarked name. My question is, what legal rights do I have to keep my domain name? Any suggestions, or even a good lawyer whom I can call?"

Things like this make me also worry about the new cybersquatting laws that may end up putting the little-guy-with-the-neat-domain between a rock and a hard place.

ttyp0 continues: "After investigation I found that Purdue had only two names trademarked, which are "Purdue University" and "Purdue Boilermakers". I clearly state that we are not affiliated with Purdue University. There are other similar sites which use the word "Purdue" in the same fashion, such as, PURDUEPEOPLE.COM, PURDUECHAT.COM, and PURDUEDATING.COM to name a few...
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What to do when your Domain is Threatened? More

What to do when your Domain is Threatened?

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  • I would go out and find a good intelectual property lawyer in the area. Also, lots of laywers volunteer free legal counsel to help out students, so you could probably actually get that through your school :).

    Good luck.

  • Work together? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Perhaps a suitable solution would be to transfer the website to them, but under some contract, stating that you will manage the domain? So it would be registered to them, but you'd be the webmaster and owner of it?

    Get a large enough glob of students in support of you, and I'm sure you can work SOMETHING out.

    Most universities probably don't want to ruin students' views of them. And they can't continue the same service without you in charge if you won't let them (it's 'copyright (c) you' of course)

    Just my take on it.

    --
    AC
  • AFAIK you have a good chance of keeping it since it is a non-commercial site.
    But of course asking a lawyer wouldn't hurt :)


    /Richard
  • I wouldn't worry about lawyers yet, maybe they're just making empty threats at this point. You can have *them* do the hard work by waiting. They'll consult a lawyer and ask 'em if they even have a case. If their lawyer doesn't think so, it saves you the work and money.

    There's no reason to worry until they sue you anyways. Once they sue you, you can start worrying about it and look for a good lawyer.

    In the meanwhile, I'd reply to them that you don't agree with them, don't think your website is infringing their trademark, that it's a free service for their students, they only benefit from your website etcetc. Just to stay polite :)

    Imho they're kinda stupid for shooting at someone who offers their customers free service.
  • Each and every case must be taken aside and examined individually, but this sounds like trademark infringement. You are using their name without their knowledge or consent. Maybe, if you ask nicely, they will reimburse you for the expense of registering the domain.
    Personally, I think it was a bad call on your part to use the school's name to promote your site. Hits should be based on content, advertising, or word of mouth, not a popular name.

  • A domain name is an adress (Score:4)

    by Edwin Oostra ( 99197 ) on Monday November 15, 1999 @01:21AM (#1532553)

    In my humble opinion a domain name is an adress, it's a place where you put up your stuff. If they haven't registerd the domain (moved to that adress) I don't see why that would mean you are infringing on their trademark rights.

    If you live in a street called lawyers lane, you're not expected to be a lawyer either, are you. I'm currently living in the Goeman Borgesiuslaan, and I'm not expecting to hear from the lawyers of his heirs, even though I freely hand out cards which state I live in the street named after him.

    You moved to the adress first, you live there now. Though luck for them imho. I don't think anyone in your position has ever lost a lawsuit. But more then a few opted for a handy amount of money, that's perhaps something to consider. They don't want this lawsuit anymore then you do.

    Whatever you do, don't allow them to bluff you into giving them the domainname. It's yours, it's your adress, and you followed all the right rules to acquire it. If they want it, they'll have to do or pay whatever it is worth to you.

  • Why don't you write back and tell them what you've told us Slashdotters? You don't have to be comabtive about it, just tell them that you've checked for evidence that they hold such a trademark and couldn't find any. Ask them to give you a thingy with a number or something -- there's probably a technical term for that. %^) At least you'll find out whether they stand on firm ground.

  • Get help from your users (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    you state that you offer free services to PU students. Email all of them, inform them of the situation, and ask for their help.
  • The chicken company is spelled "Perdue."

  • hehe (Score:4)

    by GC ( 19160 ) on Monday November 15, 1999 @01:34AM (#1532558)
    Hey, if Sun Microsystems are the . in .com, does that mean they're going to sue us all?

    :)
  • I beg to differ. You cannot answer them that you are not infringing their copyright, without first checking whether you are infringing their copyright. Otherwise - they have your response in court, and you have commited to a defense line.

    Consult a lawyer. Ask the users of your domain for contributions. If they are not afraid to lose the domain, they will leave (and you have no reason to defend the domain to begin with). If they are using it, they should participate in the effort to defend it.

  • If I came across the domain in a search I could just as easily think it was for Frank Purdue the "chicken man". That is why I think the comment to which this one is a reply is baseless.
  • What do they want with a .com address anyway, since they are an educational thingumy. Surely they should be after .edu or .edu.us

    Come to think of it why do you have .com and not .org.us?

    I think that purdue != purdueonline anyway.

    TJ
  • My domain - pcresource.net - has nothing there right now. My domain is also similar to the domains of a few other people/companies.

    While I have never been threatend with legal action by the American companies concerned I have been offered large sums of money to compensate me if I agree to hand over the domain.

    So far I have refused. The law is on my side. I bought it. I own it. It's mine.

    I would write back to the university (cc your ISP) and state the information that you know about the trademarks owned and also let them know about the services you offer (for free!) to their students. It would also help to get the students on your side. No university wants an uprising within it's students!

    In short, don't give in. The law is on your side. Don't let them take you without a fight!
  • why do they want one anyway, why cant they just stick with their .edu domain and be happy like every other college in this freaking country

  • Material, material, material! (Score:3)

    by Ratface ( 21117 ) on Monday November 15, 1999 @01:49AM (#1532565) Homepage Journal
    I have had clients in doain battles (from both sides) a few times and it ha always been a fairly drawn out process. I would advise that you be prepared for a bit of a battle.

    The interesting thing in this particular case is that your site pertains to your adversary! However, as you have had the domain for 3 years and have been using it in a legal manner, I would say you have a good case to continue using it.

    It strikes me that the difficult situation here may be your ISP. I would recommend that you talk to them as well, outline the situation and find out what their policy is on such manners. They have less personal interest in this case and may well decide that they can no longer host your domain to avoid legal disputes. Try and convince them that you have a strong case and that it is in their interests to continue hosting the domain.

    After that, I would talk to a lawyer - hopefully someone here will have suggestions for a good lawyer with domain issue experience in the States.

    Finally, I would suggest that in my humble experience, these cases don't make it to court so very often. It's like Cease and Desist Orders, which can often be resolved out of court with little hassle, as long as both sides try and keep their heads.

    Good luck!

  • preview (the fun is just beginning...) (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    this is the same institution that will later send you heaps and heaps of alumni association junkmail reminding you of the good times you've had at school and begging for contributions.
  • Well, I must say you're wrong ;)

    Domain name squatting was once regarded as completely appropriate, but this was more than four to five years ago or something like that, when big companies only had started looking at the internet and there was no such thing as the web boom. In those days, you could register for example compaqsux.com and no one would seem to bother. This is not the case anymore. If you own compaqsux.com, you shouldn't be surprised if you had recieved a letter from Compaq's lawyers by now. You should be surprised if you hadn't.

    Why is this? Because almost all companies nowadays treat the Web as one of their official marketing channels, and a damn' important one. They're keen to protect it. Besides, something about trademark law says that if you don't protect your trademark, you lose the right to it, i.e. you can't successfully sue people later on that use it. If Compaq was aware that compaqsux.com existed and didn't act, they would have a hard time later on stopping other domain names like that.

    So the sad thing is that domain names fall under trademark laws. They can sue you even if you registered it "first", because it was illegal of you to register and use their name in the first place.

    Street addresses are different. They often consist of people's names (but not trademarks) and these people are often dead, and the streets are given these names in honour. I think that if it was a person that recently (in less than 40 years or so) passed away, they would even have to ask the relatives or something, but I'm not sure about that.

    Disclaimer: The name Compaq and all deratives of it above was only used as examples.

  • The question is, if the ISP drops the site due to being scared of the legalities, could you consider that harassment? You know the automobile industry had similar problems back in the day. A new company would start up and the current manufacturers would threaten their suppliers not to supply to them. I know this is a whole other situation and it wasn't dealing with patents, but the premise was the same. They have threatened those who supply your domain with a home in hopes that they will drop your domain. Could this sort of thing be considered harassment? I don't know. I'm not a lawyer. However, I would send a NICE letter to the school stating your disagreement with the situation and imply the fact that they should not harass you further. If they want to speak to you about the domain, they should speak to YOU and not the ISP.


    SL33ZE, MCSD
    em: joedipshit@hotmail.com
  • Strictly based on the domain purdueonline.com, you are not on good legal ground. The University has a good case for trademark infringement.

    However, if other sites exist with the "Purdue" name in them, and Purdue University has not threatened or sued them, their stance is shaky. I am not a lawyer, but my understanding is that if you have a trademark, and don't defend it uniformly, then to some degree you lose rights to it.

    Another thing to consider, which potentially weakens their stance, is other businesses which have the Purdue name, but are unrelated to Purdue University. (I'm not talking domain names, but business names outside of the Internet.) The Purdue brand for chicken comes to mind. In other words, if Purdue is associated with several well-known businesses then the University's claim to anything with "Purdue" in it is greatly weakened. Since your site deals directly with the Purdue University, I'm not sure how much this counts.

    In any case, the best advice is what's been stated by others: communicate with them and try to find an alternative. You're not on great legal ground to fight them.
    ----------

  • I had to write. I attend the UofMichigan and have thought about a Uportal which is for students but not connected at all. Similar to the purdueonline.com. When I walk around the campus area I seen many brick and mortar businesses which use Wolverine, Michigan or UofM in thier names as well as using blue and gold logos. I imagine this is similar on any major campus - and no university is running down those businesses. However Purdue is not a state name like Ohio or Michigan and thus part of the general public.I think a good lawyer will be able to handle this IF the university decides to push it - though it is up to the sitemaster to show that it is on the up and up (helpful to students).
  • Prudue does not have the right to take your domain! Don't you remeber the "dibs" rule from elementary school.
  • so you could probably actually get that through your school :).

    You'll have to be careful with that ... here at UNC, my understanding is that the legal aid lawyers available to students are employees of the University and hence can't initiate legal actions or, I would surmise, even give you legal advice if you're involved in legal proceedings with the university. It wouldn't be at all surprising to me if the same turned out to be true at Purdue.

  • You've gotta wonder....why was the above marked troll? The AC is right - it would be Spam. Bigtime spam. It doesn't matter if the spam is for a so-called "good cause" or if it's Canter and Siegel again - it'd pretty much be spam.

  • give up and move on (Score:3)

    by jsm2 ( 89962 ) on Monday November 15, 1999 @02:22AM (#1532577)
    AC's solution is the very best deal that you could reasonably hope to get out of this. You are entirely in the right, morally speaking, and probably legally speaking too. But (this is the important bit):

    1. University administrators are nasty people. If you get in their way, they will be needlessly cruel to you.

    2. Universities have a million and one ways to fsck you up, whether or not you win in court. This website is not worth your whole rest of life.

    3. And you will always have a hard time getting any sort of support, because people will always believe their side of things -- when people don't understand the issues, they go by reputation, and Purdue has a better one than you do.

    In general, I'd advise anyone to fight like a tiger if right is on their side. But educators are such vindictive sods that I'd make an exception. Your two options are:

    1. Give 'em the name, but scorch the earth, destroy your site and let them deal with the user complaints. This will annoy them, but they'll have their name, and they won't be angry enough to hurt you.

    2. Co-operate fully, as per AC's suggestion. This way, you have to swallow some crow, but keep your site and keep your users happy.

    What I would not do is to organise any sort of student protest. This will frighten and humiliate the admins, and they will break you on a wheel in revenge.

    Of course, all this is assuming that you have some sort of life which you would like to preserve. If you're keen on fighting it out to the death, go for it, and good luck to you!

    either way, look on it as a learning experience . . .

    jsm
  • Street names can be anything, from Rolling Stones-street (yes, it exists. It's somewhere in Almere, NL) to Baker street. The rolling stones don't live in rolling stones-street, and not everyone who lives on baker street is a baker. Also I would think this doesn't fall under the squatting law since this states that you are using the domain-name to make money off the name. You're not, you're legitimately using the domain. maybe we should just get rid of IPnames altogether. I just wish people would get a clue. if you wanna find a phonenumber, you get a phonebook. But on the web this seems unnatural to some people. On a sidenote.. have there been battles like this about phone-numbers
    (something like 1-800-CALLME) ? It would not be that strange if someone's phonenumber would resolve to something like 0186-COMPAQ.. I think this would be comparable..

    //rdj
  • A friend of mine used to have the domain www.bertandernie.com (his name is Ernie) to run a humor list. He referred to his beer gut as "Bert". The Henson shop sicked their lawyers on him and treatened to sue, etc etc. He ended up settling by letting them buy the domain from him for about $7 more than what he paid to register it. As he says, at least he can claim that he got them to buy him a 6 pack of Sam Adams...

  • Get Medieval (Score:5)

    by jellicle ( 29746 ) on Monday November 15, 1999 @02:33AM (#1532580) Homepage
    on trademark law. You need to start reading up on everything there is to know about trademarks and domain names. There's a lot of material available - I hope you have some free time to kill.

    You'll want to start with the Domain Name Rights Coalition [domain-name.org], which has a lot of good information, including a page about your rights (more specifically, the trademark holder's rights - you have no rights) under Network Solutions' trademark policies. If you pass those tests (which I believe you do, unless Purdue has a trademark on Purdue Online which predates your domain registration), you're in much better shape - NSI won't automatically shut you down. Purdue always has the option of filing suit, you see, but under certain circumstances NSI will take action preemptively against you and you'll lose without ever entering court.

    Read your domain name registration agreement!

    Of course, Purdue's case in court is weak. It cost them almost nothing to send this demand letter; if you knuckle under, that's a nice domain name for them with almost zero expenditure. They don't have a right to possess all domain names with Purdue in them, any more than Frank-the-chicken-guy does. You aren't attempting to extort money out of them (at least I hope not), you're providing your own independent, ongoing service. You're not attempting to confuse visitors into believing that Purdue runs the site. All of these factors are important. Read up on the criteria for actually infringing someone's trademark, like I said earlier, and send the nice lawyers a letter indicating that you know your rights and stand by them. Send them a list of all the other domain names with the string "purdue" in them - there are several sites which offer wildcard domain name searching. Don't offer to sell them the domain name. If you want to sell, you must retain a lawyer for that.

    And take the time to write up some webpages about the situation and post them on purdueonline.com. Inform the school newspaper and local papers that Purdue is trying to hijack your domain name. Publicity is never a bad thing when you're in the right.

    --
    Michael Sims-michael at slashdot.org

  • Show why you registered it (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I am a student at Purdue University. Three years ago, I decided to purchase the domain PURDUEONLINE.COM and use it for whatever reason

    The most important thing for you to do is document the reason you registered the name ("for whatever reason" doesn't suffice). If you can show that you did not register PURDUEONLINE.COM in bad faith, you have gone a long way towards protecting your rights to the domain.

    The main problem for domain owners in "cybersquatting laws" is registering a domain that only makes sense in relation to someone else's trademark. If you can find other businesses and projects named after Purdue but not affiliated with the university, that might help bolster your claim.

  • I ran PurdueBUZZ and then consolidated my content with mrhoops.com.

    One of the discussions that I have had with my three partners is that of using Purdue in the domain name.

    I'd be MOST INTERESTED to know how this turns out.

    Our take was that we didn't want to test the waters, per se.

    Drop us a line if you have updates or questions.

    F. Thorn
  • If you are not using the domain name by way of trade, how can it be an infringement of someone else's trademark?
  • I go to purdue, and I went to check out your page. It is really nice, and your directory beats the hell out of the purdue directory(directory.purdue.edu). It just figures that they want to shut you down because you offer a few better things then they do. If it means anything, I am on your side!
  • keep in mind they don't own purdue.com, either.

    Last I checked, it was owned by the fansonly.com owner.

    I asked if he'd sell it about a year and a helf ago. He said he planned on using it.

    I guess he probably is interested in your case as well.

    F. Thorn
  • Sometimes just the threat of a lawsuit is enough to cause an ISP to cave, and that's all that matters. If your ISP cancels your web-hosting account because they got a copy of a C&D letter, you might as well pack it in and go home, because you've effectively already lost the case without it even going to court.

    It's sad, and it's unfair, and it should probably be illegal, but it happens a lot, and not just with domain names. I know of a few people myself who've had this happen to them.

    - A.P.
    --


    "One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad

  • Something similar happened to me.

    I've written a chat software which is now called OpenVerse [openverse.org]. When I started writing it, it was called Metaverse. But it turns out some company named SJGames owns this word (surprisingly, they only obtained a trademark for this word after the book SnowCrash was released.

    It seems SJGames CONFIGURED a mush and called is Metaverse and trademarked the name.

    So I'm happily working on my chat program when I get a letter from that company telling me I can't call it Metaverse cause they own the word.

    I was a little upset to say the least but what can I do? I'm just a lowly free software programmer and I don't have any lawyer money to protect me from them.

    I Quickly folded up Metaverse and changed the name to OpenVerse but now I worry about the next big guy to come along. What will I do then? Throw my project out the window? Fight it with no money and loose? All of these thin trademarks are really upsetting.

    There should be some merrit when it comes to trademarks. I feel that simply configuring someone elses free software and then trademarking a name based on that is pretty damn thin to me.

  • To my knowledge they dont have any more ownership rights to a domainname then cocacola would if i had registered cocacola.com before they did. Network Solutions's policy is first come, first serve.
  • Actually, it's called slashd.

    slashd is the Slashdot daemon, and is repsonsible for refreshing the pages every 60 seconds.
  • Having worked for Yale University, I can tell you that there were pleanty of mortar and brick businesses with the Yale/Bulldog name and logo that were not being shut down by Yale. Hell, ever hear of Yale Locks? And of course, there is a Yale, CT too. Having visted purdueonline.com and seen it's content, it's my opinion that this is another case of paranoid idiots trying to gobble up all the domain names they can in order to not allow for any external comments/services outside of the sanctioned university ones. Remember the story a few months back about all the domains that George Bush Jr. had purchased? Same thing. It seems to me that a 2-bit school like Purdue (yes, thats exactly what it is) would benefit from a positive website that offers it's students a FREE service that doesn't require any additional work by the school sysadmins. And it's been mentioned pleanty of times above and I'll ask it too: what does a university want with a .com domain? Are they planning on making money with it or offering free internet services? This has the smell of a marketing scheme if ever I smelled one. Remember the ol Dibert cartoon: "Marketing: 2 drink minimum".
  • I don't know that I'd email all of them, though. What I'd do is try to gather student support of your site. If you're getting a lot of hits from students and it's something that many of them use and love, I would think that other students would be willing to help you in your fight. They are probably a little too apathetic to write a letter on their own, but you could set up a table somewhere and have people sign a petition to let you keep your site.

    Also, I'd be surprised if Purdue University owns the trademark. Seems to me that Purdue chicken would have gotten the claim first. Not that I know, though.

  • Re:law (Score:1)

    by ceeam ( 39911 )
    > Network Solutions's policy is first come, first serve.

    It used to be so...
    Now it is not, if I understand this year news right.
    Money talks :-(
  • The domain name PURDUEONLINE.WHATEVER seems to be a pretty clear example of a trademark violation and I doubt you'll prevail in court. Somebody mentioned businesses around universities sporting the school logo/name, but in most cases such businesses pay licensing fees and they reach an agreement to use the name *before* operating for three years.
  • I would only advise doing this if Purdue "takes it to the next level" by actually getting a lawyer invovled, but why not submit an article in the schools paper. Heck submit it to the IUB's IDS and IUPUI's also... Like a couple of other people have said the school never wants to look bad in front of the students...

  • Obvious, but... (Score:5)

    by tgd ( 2822 ) on Monday November 15, 1999 @03:12AM (#1532601)
    This is kinda obvious but I think deserves saying... You wouldn't go to a lawyer website and ask their opinion on a diagnosis your doctor made and give it more than a grain of salt, so I wouldn't in this case either.

    Don't trust that they don't have a case because people on here tell you they don't, the best advice anyone can give in a case like this is one that was already given. Ask a lawyer (not a nerd ;) ) if the case may have merit. If it might, and you don't want to deal with the hassle, compromise or give up the domain. If the case likely has no merit, then wait until they sue you and have the lawyer deal with it.

    One thing worth saying though, is that if you decide to wait until they sue you knowing they have a case and assuming you'll give up the domain and things will be fine at that point, you should be aware that the offer to return the domain from you is not sufficient to force them to withdraw the lawsuit, and they can choose to continue it to a court case if they want.

    There are very few rules preventing malicious lawsuits here in the U.S.
  • As I still have a law license kicking around I must say, none of the following is legal advice. For definitive advice, seek counsel in your area. That said:

    Have your cease and desist letter framed and keep it as a lasting memento/badge of greatness. I have several of them and frame each new one. Perhaps a personal thing, but I do see them as a sign of the site gaining...er...notice.

    In the shortterm I would do nothing more than writing a very gentle response stating that you are a non-comm site and it is your belief and understanding that your sight does not infringe on Purdue. There are several good domain defense groups/sites. Check out http://www.ajax.org/dda/ which is the sight of Domain Defense Advocates and the infamous ajax battle .

    Hope this helps. If you get a second letter, please feel free to email me, I may know someone down there. Also, I am certain that Purdue School of Law has a clinic and that some young law student would love to chew on this. Good luck.

    rootrot

  • err, at least chickens and universities. : )

    A trademark is not a word that companies have the rights to, but a non-generic word that someone would use to describe them... ie, you wouldn't describe a university as a "purdue" and in that context perdue university has legitimate trademark.
  • 2. Universities have a million and one ways to fsck you up, whether or not you win in court. This website is not worth your whole rest of life. I hven't done many things I regret in my life. I didn't get a girl pregnant when I was 15, I didn't blow two fingers off my hand fucking around with pipe bombs, I haven't been arrested for assaulting anyone in a drunken rage a, I didn't crash my dad's car (much).

    The things I do regret all belong to the same class: caving in when I should have stood up for what I believe in. Therefore, I would urge ttyp0 to consider not only what the present looks like now, but also how it's going to look seen from the future. Are you going to be able to look back and say you did the right thing? Perhaps more importantly: will you care? It all depends on what kind of person you are.
    --

  • First make sure that you aren't infringing on any of their copyrights or trademarks. The domain name itself is just a domain name and by itself can't violate any trademarks from what little I understand of copyright law. There are two things which may potentially be a problem on the page. The clock tower with "Purdue Online" to the right of it. Is that clock tower a trademark of Purdue University? The second thing is a bit silly but they might try to prove that you're diluting their trademark because you are providing search services for their students. I realize that it just provides an interface to their search engine and they still control who has access to it and that deep linking isn't illegal but this combined with the domain name could be used as evidence in a trademark infringement suit.

    I'm not familiar with American universities but I would assume they've got a lot of money they can throw around at people so you can't safely assume the expense of a law suit would hold them back. Put a value on your time and decide if its best for you if you remove any links to official purdue services.

    I'm not siding with them, I think they're behaving like trolls, but the act of having a lawsuit filed against you may be more aggravating then any moral victory would be.l
  • You know, the more often I read these stories, the more I see people write "I know I'm right, but I'd rather not go to court/get sued/can't afford lawyers" etc.

    It's discouraging to see that. Essentially, it's cowardice.

    Partially, geeks are legal cowards because the have too much to lose - they have a lot of income potential, and they don't want to jeopardize it - and partially, I think there's a culture here that's conflict averse for anything other than text flamewars.

    Personally, I'm a scrapper, descended from a line of scrappers - including people who fought Latin American dictators and faced exile and death for their convictions. I am pretty sure I would put up a fight in a situation like this - it's sad to see that few will, because you will never enjoy rights that you don't struggle for.
  • Another thing to consider, which potentially weakens their stance, is other businesses which have the Purdue name, but are unrelated to Purdue University. (I'm not talking domain names, but business names outside of the Internet.) The Purdue brand for chicken comes to mind. In other words, if Purdue is associated with several well-known businesses then the University's claim to anything with "Purdue" in it is greatly weakened. Since your site deals directly with the Purdue University, I'm not sure how much this counts.

    No offense, but the chicken company is Perdue, not Purdue. I don't think there is a big company out there that uses Purdue as its name. So that kills the evenly defensed trademark issue. The way I remember things, even departments within the university had to get permission to use the seal. So Purdue is pretty psycho about protecting their name.

  • Besides, something about trademark law says that if you don't protect your trademark, you lose the right to it The difference here is that Perdue (I presume) is a place, and try as they might, Perdue College/University will not be able to trademark the place itself. It'd be like microsoft trying to trademark Redmond (or wherever they are)
  • Oh yeah? And what law says so?

    Not that I doubt the charlatans most people call congressman would pass a law saying that.

    Do you perchance work for the Committee for the Prevention of Unauthorized Practice of Shystering?
  • You may want to inform Purdue that they have no reason for a commercial domain. And if they are in it for commercial purposes then maybe the NCAA should be notified. Also, you had the domain for serveral year before cybersquatting became a big issue. It may have been different if your domian was purduepeople.org, but even then just because of the amount of years that you have had the domain. Maybe Purdue chicken should take legal action against the university or maybe the university should take legal action against them. Either way it's really stupid and it sounds like they are getting involved with something they know nothing about and their lawyers don't care because either way they get paid to piss people off. I was say talk to the dean before you go spending money on a blood-sucking lawyer. Good luck!
  • A student news organization at my school, Claremont McKenna College, has the domain www.claremontmckenna.com [claremontmckenna.com], which is even more provocative than yours. They're also currently embroiled in a trademark dispute with the college, so it might be worth checking out their account of their troubles or e-mailing them to plan strategy.

    Alexis
  • Don't run you will just die tired. |: )

    In my own experience, having a good lawyer as your legal-flak handler makes all the difference in the world. Do not wait for a court date to be handed to you by a summons server. "An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure." If they see that you have a bright, shiny, well made shield the attack may be called off. "Doh! Thought we were just picking on a little guy and could get what we want with little or no fight."

    If that does not work then when they do sue P/R them to death. "Hey, everybody, this big brute of an institution is wasting money with frivolous lawsuits."

    Then next time pick a name that is completely unrelated i.e. "Red Brick", "2X4", "juice", whatever.

  • Also: just about every university I've seen is surrounded by small businesses that use its name: I'll bet you've got a Purdue Dry Cleaner in the neighborhood, a Purdue Burger joint. You can very likely show selective enforcement--but I'd get a lawyer to do it for me.
  • I can see the university getting upset if this was a case of cybersquatting (i.e. you bought the name and expected to the university to pay $$$ for it), but this is absurd. F him. I agree with an earlier poster. All you need to do is take your plea to the student paper and post flyers all over campus. But I suggest trying to peacefully reason with the dickhead first, if that's posssible. If he won't see how stupid he is, play hardball.What does he think? ANYTHING with the name "Purdue" in it they can claim. That's a bunch of crap.
  • IANAL - take with a grain of salt.

    I'd expect that as a student, you'd get some sort of "fair use" protection, just as I'd expect an underground "student publication" to. You'll want to read up on trademark/fair use stuff, or try to find a lawyer who'll give you an idea of the applicablility of fair use. The fact that they're not even questioning the content of the site would make me wonder seriously about it. If a student can't use their University's name, then what value is that affiliation? I'd also go to the local campus newspaper and start trying to get them interested in a story. If you can find a friendly lawyer who thinks you've got a fair use exemption, then have them send an answering letter to the University. You may also want to make sure it's perfectly clear on the main page that the site isn't affiliated with the University and that they own the trademark. It's easier to win if you can prove that there's no dilution of their mark. Their case will probably be about dilution, focus on that, not on just using the name. Also, use disclaimers in any mail you send from the domain.

    Talk to a lawyer if at all possible, and try the "Dear University, I feel my site is covered by fair use doctrine, however I've added strong language to the disclaimer on my site to protect you from dissolution of your mark. If you'd like the text of the language changed, I'd be happy to work with you to come up with mutually agreeable verbage." Watch how it's worded though, you don't want to admit an infringement, just that you want to reach an agreement without giving up your domain.

    HTH,

    Paul

  • Do not wait. I'm not a lawyer, but I can tell you that waiting to consult a lawyer (who is expirenced in this) is a bad idea.

    Get a lawyer to look over the case, give you a preliminary thoughts. Take his advice, but perhaps write a letter of response that you have received their letter and are researching the relavent areas of law. Make sure it is neteral, you don't want to give any impression that you are leaning one way or anouther.

    Now go to the local library and do research. A law library is better, but any one will do. Go to the law sections and read how to be your own lawyer books, and all the relavent area of law. This should take many hours, so plan on spending a lot of time reading. Lawyers may be paid to know the law, but they rarely know enough. If you know the law you can either save him some research, or perhaps win the case when you bring up relavent areas that he wouldn't have looked for. Some lawyers are good, some are too lazy to do it right. (Use tact when suggesting things to him though, a lawyer who doesn't like you will not help you)

    When I mention a paid lawyer above, not just any lawyer, you want one who knows the internet and internet law. (But you can get recomendataions from a local lawyer)

    Of course the publicity angle mentioned above doesn't hurt, students tend to side with the underdog, they may put enough pressure on the university that they back off.

  • As a purdue student myself, I am familiar with the site in question. While I do not make use of it frequently, I am _very_ concerned about this as I am also a professional web developer. Additionally, I have seen no harm or misuse of the University's name or good character by the site. While my misgivings about the administration's dedication to the student body at purdue stem from other experiences, this can only serve to re-affirm my view that those in charge at Purdue are severly out of touch with the students.

    Hopefully this'll get enough press on campus to make a difference.
  • As a student at the university, I can only wonder what the university plans to do with the domain. Do they just want the domain and plan on doing nothing with it, or do they actually have grand plans for purdueonline.com? I doubt they do, but nobody knows for sure. As far as the web page, I applaud the webmaster for not using any sort of advertising, and it is a nice service. The webmail feature is nice, but I can get my email just as easily sshing to expert or telnetting to mailhome. Seth
  • Since the link on the /. story didn't have an http://, I had to type in the link manually and at first I type just "purdueonline.com", which leads to the homepage for Global Transit Logistics, Inc. I suppose there's nothing wrong with that (as far as a legal sense), but it seems odd from a practical sense. Do you know know why this is, ttyp0? Is it just a mix up on your hosting services end?
  • according to Webster: perdue n. "a soldier sent on a dangerous mission".

  • OT

    Just curious but why, if your friend flashed, was it a big deal about the pics being on the web?

  • So, this person is a jackass/pervert for taking pictures of a naked chick in a public place? Who is "this person?" The owner of purdueonline? If not, I don't see what relevance this has to this article.

    Under my understanding of the law, any pictures taken in public locations can be published however seen fit. If he snuck into your room and took pictures of you, then you'd have a right to be pissed. But he took pictures in a public location, where your friend WILLINGLY exposed herself to the crowd. Why, may I ask, is it any different if the people in the crowd see her naked in person or if they see her naked on a website?

    Then you threaten the guy to take them down? Good thing he wasn't sue-happy as most Americans seem to be.
  • It's so refreshing to hear how these schools are devoted to your education. After all this time I was still convinced that they were only after your $$$,$$$.$$ and gave you a worthless diploma in return even if you didn't learn anything.

    Maybe if you were really good at some sport they wouldn't give you such a hard time. Sports are what's important you know.

    Meanwhile you had best quit screwing around trying to educate yourself and get the legal battle going. That way you'll be delayed in your education and have to spend more $$,$$$.$$ to finish it up.
  • OK, wait a minute-- where did you get the information for the student directory? Did you collate it yourself, going door to door and asking for major and email address? Because if you are using Purdue's info there, that might be a little problem.

    If a school I attended allowed the database of students to be used for whatever purpose, I'd be a little miffed.
  • Take your case to the alumni. You're offering free services to students, right, better than the equivalents offered by the administration? The alumni are bound to take your side. Once that happens the administration will fold faster than you can say "donation money".

    If you do have to give it up, try to assign ownership to a student-run organization that is not under university control, or at least with a great deal of autonomy, that can raise a big stink if the administration gets coercive in how the domain is used.
  • No. He just wants to make sure the guy understands that he *needs* a lawyer if he's going to try and make a deal with the university. It's hard enough to get your cable company to fix your line, imagine what a long-established-and-prestigious university would be like without help!
  • The DNS namespace is not appropriate for trademark laws at all. It's amazing how many things are trademarked -- if we removed all of them from the allowed list of domains, only large corporations with armies of lawyers would be allowed to have anything but random sequences of alphanumerics.

    Trademarks are designed to work within specific classes of goods and services. Purdue the school is certainly within Class 41, Education. Since the site in question isn't being used to sell (or "trade", as the case may be) anything, it doesn't really fall into any class. But even if it did, it probably would be a different one, and there would be no conflict.

    Furthermore, trademarks DO NOT remove the usage of a word from the language. Just because someone has trademarked the letter Q (Paramount has, by the way) doesn't mean you can't use it. As I understand it, descriptive use of trademarks is okay. You are allowed to call the Boston Marathon "The Boston Marathon" without the permission of the trademark owners -- you don't have to call it "that big long famous race that's held in Boston. That might apply in this case as well.


    --

  • Although you are not running a commercial site, you may want to talk to a lawyer to help the chances of you saving your site. - Caster
  • No but see, they are passing laws that say you can't buy a trademarked name with the intent to sell. If he sold it would show intent.. DUH! While a good lawyer could help make sure he doesn't get himself in that sorta trouble.
  • I believe the University has dropped the case. I think ttyp0 posted this a few weeks ago when he first receieved the letter, last I had talked to him (on this past Friday). The university has dropped the case against him. They relized that they would not win (He owns a trademark in the state of Indiana on PurdueOnline). The University really does only have a trademark on Purdue [remove to make this not a trademark violation] Univeristy, and Purdue [remove to make this a trademark violation] Boilermarkers.

    The University came after me last year when I launched PurdueDating.com [purduedating.com], however they did not pursue the domain, just the fact I was running off Purdue's network, thats why I left their network and relaunched my site. ttyp0 and I speculated that they wanted the domain so they could build a site they could make money off of, and figured that he would just say 'Here you go'.

    Jason

  • We need more TLD and *restrictions* on them (Score:5)

    by Masem ( 1171 ) on Monday November 15, 1999 @04:27AM (#1532642)
    If this was Compaq going after compaqonline.com, I see no problem with that. However, this is an education instituion trying to go after a .com domain. There's something logically wrong about that.

    Besides the constant talk about trying to add new top level domains, I really hope such talk includes placing restrictions on those domains. Things such as

    • .net may only be distributed to ISPs and other network service providers.
    • .org may only be distributed to non-profit organizations
    • .com or .baz may be only distributed to companies and businesses.
    Also, I would suggest that you cannot fight domain names that are outside your company's TLD. For example, say .web is set up for general purpose websites that are not part of e-business and fall outside other catagories (I would consider /., segfault, and most on line comics to fall into this area). If someone set up compaqsuxs.web, Compaq would have no right to try to fight that site, as Compaq would be considered a .com/.biz site. (If there is excessive slander in the content of the site, then there might be recourse there, but that's not related to the domain name itself).

    But once again, it boils down to the fact that e-commerce has put too much value on the domain name, which 5 years ago, was of very little importance to any net-savvy person. *sigh*.

  • This type of case is what this company was formed for. I suggest contacting them and see what they have to say, and keep printed copies of you e-mails with them, including headers. Best thing you can do is not give in until the law takes the domain away from you and that will not happen for a while, things would have to go to the supream court with att the refilings and everything, just never give in. If the little people are crushed there will be nothing left to hold up the rest of the people.

    WWW.EFF.COM [eff.com]

    oki900

    TIME - a measurment of it's self to determine how much time it takes for time to pass.

  • DON"T give them any ideas, please!

  • The assumption we had about the site was they wanted to make a portal to the university, so they can make money off it (putting a million ads on each page targeted towards students, and/or their families.)

    The university made him take off the phone directory on there because they claimed they owned the phone numbers/information in there. Does anyone really OWN that kind of information?

    Jason

  • first to AC:

    Although your point is probably valid, in that I didn't give much evidence of not being a chickenshit, I'm actually not one. Among the organisations and people with whom I've picked fights during a short but belligerent life are: the Inland Revenue (several times), the British Army, the Swiss Banking Commission and the Richardson family (S. London). I've looked into the barrel of a gun and talked my way out of it. As a community leader, I've stood face to face with a man who was later convicted for arranging the murder of three (fellow) drug dealers and told him he wasn't welcome in our estate. This isn't macho-talk, just a record of the things that happen to you if you're articulate, political and more than averagely cocky.

    Of all the battles I've been in, however, the ones which left me worst bruised have been fought against educational institutions. You are wrong to assume that they will hold back from being vindictive; they correctly assume that they will get the best of the PR battle. Big universities can flunk you, throw you out, etc, etc and who are the newspapers going to believe? A prestigious institution of learning, or some guy who flunked college and claims that they have a vendetta against him? As soon as you take on the authority which rates people for credibility, you start to develop credibility problems of your own.

    Second, to Mawbid:

    I've done a lot more things that I regret than you have, for example; both sins of ommission and of commission. I would wholeheartedly agree with you that people should always stand up for what they believe in.

    But I'd urge ttypo to consider whether this is really "something he believes in", or just something he wants. If it's the first, fight like a tiger. If it's the second, you need to weigh up the balance of advantages. As far as I can see, it's the second, and the balance of advantages says "give up and move on".

    Many things are worth going to the wire for. Political views, loved ones, the truth. Possessions never are. And a domain name looks much more like a possession than anything else to me.

    God, I never thought I was going to get so philosophical. I must care about this more than I thought.

    jsm

    PS On a practical note, I might suggest that a write-in protest by /. reading Purdue alumni might a) alert the administrators that they might be alienating potential benefactors through their actions and b) would probably not get ttypo into too much trouble.
  • This is simply not true. I go to the University of Michigan, and the athletic department has a ".com" website (www.mgoblue.com) that they regularly advertise during football games. Clearly the NCAA has no problem with this. Also, I don't believe there is any requirement that an organization be commercial to have a ".com" domain name, it's just a suggestion.

  • Earlier Case I remember (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I remember reading a long while ago on /. about another domain that this happened to. I can't remember off-hand *which* domain it was, but basically someone had chosen to use a domain, and then later down the road a company tried to force him to turn it over. He refused and later it was discovered you can basically fight and win the domain battle if you can prove some stuff.. the ones I remember being:
    1) You've had the domain for more than 2 years *AND* the other party never asked you to turn it over (such as a domain that was the same as a company name)
    well I can really only remember that one, but as I sit here.. I start to wonder why would the university threaten you? It's just that, a University, hence would be *required* to use .EDU (not .COM) There are other sites out there that use school names.. such as www.psu.org (the school's address: www.psu.edu) and such. I believe Perdue is going overboard on this, and since you do strictly have a disclaimer you are not affliated with the school, they should have no problem. There is a Orthopedics place in my home town (same town with Penn State Univ) that is named "University Orthopedics". Simple way to avoid a lawsuit.. they state in any ad they place (radio, TV, etc) "We are not affliated with The Pennsylvania State University, but we do treat many of their atheletes"
    In any case, I'd look more into the deal about having the domain for 2 years... I *know* the posting is here on /. somewhere.. The article would be maybe about 8 months old now, and I'm not sure how long /. keeps postings around, but maybe one of the guys could give you a hand in tracking it down.
  • Purdue's case in court is weak
    IANAL, but I searched the web a bit and I don't agree. First of all it seems to be pErdue chicken, not pUrdue. Except for Purdue Pharma [pharma.com] the word purdue seems to be almost exclusively used in the context 'Purdue University'.

    He is a student at the Purdue University, so it's pretty obvious where he got the inspiration for his domainname. They are accusing him of trademark infringement. If there are no states, rivers, companies named 'Purdue something', I'd say they'd judge that he is indeed using a derivate of their name, and I'd say they can make him stop.

    Some people mentioned that he's not making money of the domainname, that he didn't buy it in an attempt to sell it later, and that the school should get a .edu domain. That all seems completely irrelevant to me if they're out to stop him using the name based on trademark infringement.

    But then again - I'm not a U.S. citizen, and I am not very familiar with U.S. laws. If I were you I'd consult a lawyer, rather asking the /. community.

  • What about the other 50 *purdue*.* domain names? (Score:4)

    by nichachr ( 98296 ) on Monday November 15, 1999 @04:47AM (#1532651)
    I would ask them which of the other 50 registrants of domain names with "Purdue" in the name they're hassling. There are obviously a few below that are probably running much more commerical sites than yours. As for legal advice, I suggest you check with the registrants of: Purdue-law.com [purdue-law.com](They specialize in patent law!) and Purduelaw.com [purduelaw.com] (no site up). They might have some advice!

    CCPURDUE.COM
    PURDUEMANAGEDCARE.COM
    GREEKSATPURDUE.COM
    BIGPURDUEFAN.COM
    PURDUEPRIDE.COM
    PURDUEAPARTMENTS.COM
    PURDUEGEAR.COM
    GO2PURDUE.COM
    PURDUEALUMNICLUB.COM
    PURDUETALK.COM
    PURDUERULES.COM
    PURDUETEAMLINK.COM
    PURDUECATALOG.COM
    PURDUEBOOKSTORE.COM
    GOPURDUE.COM
    PURDUEPRONET.COM
    PURDUEMAIL.COM
    PURDUEBOILERMAKERS.COM
    PURDUEONLINE.COM
    PURDUELAW.COM
    PURDUEEFCU.COM
    PURDUEBIOPHARMA.COM
    HPURDUE.COM
    PURDUEFAN.COM
    PURDUEDATING.COM
    E-PURDUE.COM
    PURDUEJOBS.COM
    PAULPURDUE.COM
    PURDUEPHARMA.COM
    PURDUE-LAW.COM
    PURDUE-FEDERICK.COM
    PURDUEFREDERICK.COM
    PURDUEFREDRICK.COM
    PURDUESPIRIT.COM
    PURDUEPEOPLE.COM
    PURDUE.COM
    PURDUESPORTS.COM
    PURDUEU.COM
    MRPURDUE.COM
    PURDUENET.COM
    PURDUEBOOKS.COM
    PURDUEGRAD.COM
    PURDUEHOUSING.COM
    PURDUEUNIVERSITY.COM
    JOHNPURDUECLUB.COM
    PURDUEFUND.COM
    PURDUECOOPERATIVES.COM
    PURDUEPETE.COM
    PURDUEALUMNI.COM
    PURDUEBASKETBALL.COM
    PURDUESOURCE.COM
  • If this was Compaq going after compaqonline.com, I see no problem with that. However, this is an education instituion trying to go after a .com domain. There's something logically wrong about that.

    Does this mean that I should be able to register compaq.org (they're not a non-profit organization) or compaq.net (they're not a network provider - well maybe they are actually)? I think not.

    But once again, it boils down to the fact that e-commerce has put too much value on the domain name, which 5 years ago, was of very little importance to any net-savvy person. *sigh*.

    5 years ago, netscape.com was important. How else would I have known where down download Mozilla 1.0 beta? ibm.com was important - how could I have gotten drivers for OS/2 (yeah, I may have gotten them via some BBS)?
  • You're right, but there are a few differences in this case which could be enough to make a sizeable difference. First, neither this guy or Purdue is a corporation. They don't go by the capitalist ideas of `marketing channels' and such. Secondly, this site is not something like `PurdueSux.' It's providing a service -- a legitimate and useful one at that. A site like CompaqSux would fall under attack because it fired pot shots at them. No company wants sites around saying they suck.

    Chances are the university just wants that domain name for their own use. But instead of going through the proper channels and asking you to sell it, they're beeing greedy and trying to scare you into handing it over, costing them nothing but some fancy looking legal paper, an envelope and a stamp.

    My advice is to wait it out; if they come at you with big guns, then call a lawyer or plan your next step. I think there's a good chance they'll realize their attempt at scaring you has failed, and either drop the issue or offer a monetary `settlement.' But don't respond with drastic measures until you're hit with drastic actions. And good luck!

    -kugano
  • It looks like this could go either way. On one hand the surname Purdue has been around since the 1500's or so, well before the University. Furthermore I don't think that you can trademark a surname. Now if you had used PurdueUOnline.com then that is a clearer case against you. The only thing I would do is remove direct references to "Purdue University" from the page. Which in a way defeats the purpose of the site as a resource. You can check out the site http://www.netpolicy.com/ as they may be able to help you find counsel. DO NOT GIVE UP! Far too many people are rolling over when it comes to this. There will come a time in the near future where the courts will have to do some serious re-evaluation of the trademark process. If it keeps going like this you'll have people trademarking words like "the" or "and" and trying to charge royalties. Come on!
  • `perdue' also means `lost' in French. Hopefully we can take this as an omen that Purdue will lose, not that purdueonline will lose. :)

    -kugano
  • I just tried the name search and it doesn't return results for addresses outside the purdue.edu domain. So you'd have to do some IP spoofing to get in... :)
  • Go Bucks!!! Beat Michigan this Weekend!!!

    Sorry, It had to be done.

  • I'm a lawyer and (worse?) a law professor, so I have to start with disclaimers: this isn't legal advice, consult a lawyer who is familiar with the facts of your situation, etc. etc. YMMV. Consult the other disclaimers [catalog.com] at once, etc. etc..

    I should also note that what follows is based on the law at the time the letter was written (i.e. I am not taking account of the cybersquatting bill [loc.gov], which AFAIK has not actually passed both houses yet although I gather it's almost a foregone conclusion).

    Furthermore, trademark law varies some (but only some) from country to country. I know much more about US law than I do about other countries. What I do know about European trademark law, however, suggests that the position of a domain name registrant viz a viz a brick & mortar trademark holder is a little less favorable in, say, the Netherlands, than it would be in the US because the distinction between commercial/non-commercial uses is less strong, and because mere registration may qualify as "use" of a trademark or some other type of infringing activity. What follows is primarily geared to the US domain name registrant.

    As a general rule, trademark law divides the universe of trademarks into two families: a fairly small set of "famous" marks (think "CocaCola (tm)" and everything else. In the US the "famous" marks (and, weirdly, maybe some non-famous marks) are protected by relatively new federal anti-dilution statute and in many but not all states by (older) state anti-dilution laws which do vary. All trademarks, whether famous or not, are also protected against "confusion" and "tarnishment" (and other stuff we'll ignore for now). Tarnishment prosecutions are rare, but the law protects against the association of a trademarked name with something really bad (porn or drugs), modulo first amendment concerns (but then beware libel law). Running a porn site, even a free one, might well be considered tarnishment if the site's name was easily confused with a trademarked name.

    The critical points to understand, as a first approximation to the law only, are these:

    • In the US, although not necessarily in other countries, mere registration of a domain name, without something more (infringing use and/or an offer to sell the domain name, especially one that is part of a pattern of such offers), is NOT a violation of trademark law. There might be some special cases sounding in unfair competition law (e.g. registering the domain name of a competitor), but we'll ignore that.
    • If
      1. your use is purely non-commercial (you are not even selling T-shirts), and
      2. you have never offered to sell the domain name to anyone for anything, and
      3. you are not guilty of tarnishment
      then your legal position is very strong.
    • If you are engaged in any sort of commercial activity using the domain name, it matters whether the trademark is famous or not.
      • If it is (and fame can be just regional instead of national) , you might want to talk to a lawyer as this part of the law is in some flux since the federal statute is fairly new and state laws vary.
      • If the mark is not famous, the most important issue is whether there is a likelihood of confusion between your site and the trademark. This is a question about how you are using the site, not a question about the name itself. On the other hand, the court will look at the totality of the circumstances, including how different your line of business is from that of the trademark holder. Just running a little disclaimer is not inevitably going to be enough to protect you, especially if there is substantial similarity between your line of business and theirs. Yup, probably lawyer time again.
    • If you have offered to sell the domain name for $$$ the court is going to suspect you of being a cybersquatter. The more the $$$, the worse it looks. It also looks worse if you initiated the contact; it's less bad if they contacted you and they first broached the subject of $$$.

    Note also that all new registrations and all re-registrations in .com, .org and .net will henceforth be subject to ICANN's new take-it-or-leave-it dispute policies [icann.org] at the option of a complainant with a trademark seeking to wrest a domain name from a non-trademark holder.

    So, don't panic. Please keep in mind that the new cybersquatting bill may obsolete some of the above. I understand the bill was amended last week and I have not had a chance to look at the latest text, which is why I'm not discussing it.


    A. Michael Froomkin [mailto],
    U. Miami School of Law,POB 248087
    Coral Gables, FL 33124,USA
  • Has anyone actually looked at what's on this site?

    Doesn't look like student help thing to me.

    This doesn't really change my view that Purdue couldn't own
    it, but I start to wonder about why someone would post
    that they are providing student services.

    neo
  • Purdue's Administrators are pretty dumb. They don't know much when it comes to computers. They don't have any rights to the domain PurdueOnline.ANYTHING. They do not have a patent/trademarks on "Purdue". "Purdue" is a proper name. It would be like me trademarking the name "Jason", and suing everyone that has the name Jason for $10 each.

    About the only thing they could do anything about is it they own the information contained inside the site, which they do not own. There are numerous other sites that allow you to POP off anothers mail server. If they went after that I'de hate to see any other site that allows you to POP off any other server for mail....every ISP could sue them. And then every ISP could then sue Microsoft for OutShit, and AOL for Netscape Mail

    We live in a world where we sue for power. Do you know where your 'su' is?

    Jason

  • I have to say that this is one of those life enriching moments, where you make concious moral decisions that will define you charachter. How important is this to you?? There is the possible cost to be absorbed in the case of a legal battle, but the same thing exists for Perdue University. And this is no small matter. The university has much more to lose in the case of a legal battle. There is the potential PR nightmare, etc...

    Who is your academic advisor?? This might be someone to talk to early on, and try to win over to your side. Especially if you're in geek school. (CS) The best thing to do would be to ask the assistance of some faculty members that would be sympathetic to your plight. They can help you get a much better grasp of the hierarchy's involved around the university, and can be a welcome angry voice. Remember, in the eyes of these administrators, you are still a "kid". They believe you to be irresponsable, etc. A mature "respected" voice would go a long way to aid in your plight.

    In the immediate future, a polite letter informing the university that you do not see where there is any trademark infringement, and that you plan to hold on to the domain for the time being would be your best course of action.

    Should the University persist, I would shop the domain around to see if Perdue Chicken, Perdue Heavy Industries, Will Perdue, A friend of yours named Perdue, or anybody else is interested in the domain. Sell it for an amount that will pay for the internic costs, and be done with it. This is known as the "Scorched Ethernet" strategy. You might raise the ire of one of the Administrators of the university, but hey, this will just prepare you for the PHB you will eventually work for.

    You have many options available to you, but I think that caving in to the administration is one that you will regret. "A life lived in fear is a life half lived."

    You have a 50/50 chance of winning a lawsuit depending on the Judge, and you could probably appeal it until the point is moot, but you will lose your sanity and your credit rating in the process.

    If nothing else, after shopping the Domain around, you could inform the university that you have an offer on the domain already, and explain that if they are going to force you to give it up, you would just as soon recoup your investment in the domain. But if it gets to this point, contact a lawyer for the wording so it does not sound like a threat. There are some technicalities involved in this. I had a similar problem with a company I used to work for, and now neither of us have the domain, and I have a better job.

    ~Jason Maggard
    "I have achieved peace in our time"
    ~Neville Chamberlain
  • I used microsoft as an example - I didn't mean to start off the usual /. microsoft bashing awards!
  • That's okay. You're entitled to your opinion, no matter what the facts are. (In other words, I intend to dissect your post into little itsy bitsy worthless pieces).

    Domain name squatting was once regarded as completely appropriate...

    1. Who says that ttyp0 [mailto] is cybersquatting? According to his article, the website is offering services of a valid nature to Purdue students.
    2. He's not attempting to sell the domain name and make money on it, and finally,
    3. I disagree that domain name squatting was ever regarded as completely appropriate, even "four to five years ago or something like that"
    My point being, that cybersquatting is not anything remotely like what is going on here.

    The second part of your post implies that anything to do with the word Compaq (for example) is trademarked, which may or may not be true. However, ttyp0 [mailto] checked, and clearly states not only that "I found that Purdue had only two names trademarked, which are "Purdue University" and "Purdue Boilermakers"." but also that "I clearly state that we are not affiliated with Purdue University."So on this point, again, the website owner has made efforts to completely obey the law.

    This leads to my final dissection of your post, in which you say "...something about trademark law says that if you don't protect your trademark, you lose the right to it, i.e. you can't successfully sue people later on that use it." That is correct. Except that the name Purdue isn't trademarked, just "Purdue University" and "Purdue Boilermakers. Which means that your final point ("They can sue you even if you registered it "first", because it was illegal of you to register and use their name in the first place.") doesn't hold up to reality.

    The bottom line is, if the University wanted the word "Purdue" trademarked, they should have done it years ago. Since they didn't, they don't have the legal right to challenge PURDUEONLINE.COM [purdueonline.com]'s right to exist.

  • I have to say that I agree it probably isn't a big deal, but I would seek the advice of a lawyer and at the very least get him to draft a response letter stating that he is your lawyer and you are not going to give up the domain name as you are not infringing on their trademarks (insert law references here) etc. etc.

    Ignoring their official letter is probably a bad idea. Spend the Hundred bucks and get a lawyer to send them a letter.

    forgey
  • First and foremost, the thing you need to do is find a lawyer, find a lawyer, find a lawyer. I'm not one. 99.9% of the people who post on Slashdot on /. are not one either. Don't take our advice, except in that one important respect.

    How to find a lawyer? There's a lawyer directory called Martindale-Hubbell, which you can find at most any library. They also have a website [martindalehubbell.com], but I don't know if that actually contains the full content of the book or just those people who've added an online listing.

    This book lists not only the lawyers and their types of practices, but also certain important statistics that help you decide how good they are. Find a lawyer and talk to them. You may or may not have a case, but Slashdotters are not the ones to tell you that.
  • Though this is probably one story in a billion, I was affiliated with a site called xfiles.com, in which X-Files [fox.com] fans could gather, talk and trade files on their favorite TV show.

    The Fox Network [fox.com] soon saw upset that xfiles.com existed and wanted the domain name.

    The webmaster, whom I worked under, fought hard, and he retold his story Here [ruletheuniverse.com].

    The eventual downfall came when Fox threatened to litigate in expensive lawsuits. My boss had the legal right, but the big money of FOX could muscle his middle class income into poverty with just one legal battle.

    So we caved, and created Chatphiles.com [chatphiles.com] instead.
    *Carlos: Exit Stage Right*

    "Geeks, Where would you be without them?"

  • Does this mean that I should be able to register compaq.org (they're not a non-profit organization) or compaq.net (they're not a network provider - well maybe they are actually)? I think not.

    I'd argue that if logic prevailed over IP, then compaq.org and compaq.net are fundamentally different from compaq.com, and Compaq has no right to claim those domains.

    The problem is that of image. In the perfect world, if the average joe saw they were at compaq.net, they would know that they are not at a site that is necessarily affliated with Compaq. Thus, Compaq would have no reason to think about compaq.net. Unfortuatnely, e-commerce has elevated the URL to a status symbol. It's almost but not quite too late to place restrictions on domain names to remove the status of URL, or at least limit them to a subset of domain space.

  • Not really, if the transition is done right.

    First, let's add .web, .www, .home, and other TLD that are not company or organization web sites, but are just probably the initial definition of web sites.

    During the transition period, before these new TLDs are open, all holders of .com sites that are not commercial businesses would be allows to register within the new TLDs on a name by name basis (eg you own slashdot.org, you could only get slashdot.web or slashdot.www). This would be FREE OF CHARGE, along with the stipuation that at the end of the transition period, the .com domain would be removed from the registery. If the domain name owner does not want to give up the .com domain, he has that right, pending the fact that they would no longer have the first come first serve rights that NSI current grants, leaving them open for any domain name conflict issues.

    Now, I know this will screw up many search engines and a lot of other things too, so the nameserver people would work with the search engine sites to work most of this out. The transition period would have two halves; the first is the above, and the second would be when web site maintainers and search engines would begin to readjust all points to fix those sites that moved (if NSI provides a list of the old and new domain names, this ought to be as simple as a perl regex!)

  • Hey Brent,

    I'm a CS '97 grad from Purdue (and I'm guessing we know each other, but I digress) and I recall this type of thing being the subject of a couple talks I heard when I was there.

    The first one that comes to mind is when Dr. Comer [purdue.edu] talked to our 413 class. One of the students asked what he thought about someone registering comer.com , and he totally blew it off, saying that when they developed DNS, they never expected people would just go out registering everything, so that's just the way it goes. I know Dr. Comer can be a hard person to find, but (especially if you're a CS student) if you can get him to put in a nice word for you with the administration, saying that that's just the way the system (in part developed by Purdue) was designed to work, it would probably be a big boon for your case. Of course there are deeper political issues with doing that: I'll leave that as an exercise to the reader.

    The second source you'll want to check out is University Cleaners. I heard the owner (who's like a PU ME class of '56 or something) give a talk at a leadership conference. Seems that when he started University Cleaners 30 or 40 years ago, he got the same kind of letter from the University, saying how he had to change the name because people were getting the impression that his business was owned or something by Purdue University, which we all know is a bunch of bunk. Anyway, he made a big case for himself, presented it to Purdue, and they dropped the issue. So look him up and see if he has any pointers for you.

    Of course, a bunch of letters from Alums can't hurt. I'd be happy to participate. Just let me know where to send it if you organize such an effort.

    Hope this helps!

    -"Zow"

    #define GETALAWYER

    #include

  • when it comes down to it, this is going to have to be made as a rational business decision on your part.

    You need to do two things: (1) Assess the value (aesthetically, commercially or otherwise) to you of keeping the domain name; and (2) Assess the merits of Purdue's claims.

    This much is clear, you cannot answer the latter question effectively without getting good advice from a competent lawyer, and in this case an expert on the subject will be far more efficient than a low-end techno-newbie, even at one-third the rate.

    I can assure that no contributor to slashdot, lawyer or non-laywer can give you sound advice based solely upon the information provided, so should you decide to act upon any advice you receive here, be assured you will get in value precisely what you paid for the advice. Might as well flip a coin.

    But if you do complete those analyses, you may discover that the matter can be dismissed with a letter, or even if it cannot be, that it would be worthwhile to fight (or try to outstare the other side) with respect to a genuine lawsuit. From this information, you can actually plan and execute a strategy, rather than merely react to the letter.

    For your own good, Its probably best not to respond to the letter until you have obtained advice of competent counsel, except perhaps to advise the other side that you will communicate with them after you have obtained and received advice of counsel.

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