Sit back kids this ones gonna be a long one,
About 8 months ago at barcamp Leeds 2007, I talked to Manoj for a short period of time, we spoke about getting him on northcast and edocrs current status, I mentioned that i noticed edocr.co.uk was available and he should buy it before someone does and tries to sell him it for a lot of money, we laughed….
8 months later I was looking at the edocr site as I was considering writing about it for news.northhub.co.uk, feeling in a funny mood I tried edocr.co.uk again and realised it STILL wasn’t registered (8 months), I registred it and for a bit of fun placed an homage to manoj (note I used text and photos that were written from / by manoj), I also placed a link to his facebook fan page and a HUGE link to the edocr website incase anyone got there by mistake…
Afterwards I thought that it looked a little ananomus and dodgey and it really should show who did it so that Manoj could contact me and get the domain.. I placed some images refering back to the convrersation we had (a lot of money) and a joke price of an iPhone, I also placed a picture of me and a link to my website to make it easyier to contact…
the aim was to get a couple of people to visit the website click through to edocr and the refer logs will show edocr.co.uk, Manoj see’s the link and sends me an email, job done…after all we are all friends here in the north.
So tonight I met Manoj at the geek girl dinner… well I say met him I honestly didnt get a chance to speak because I was videoing the whole thing for Gem, I was trying to get to him and talk about it because I honestly didnt know if he knew or not and to be honest the joke was getting a little thin..
Anyway… whilst getting on the train home from Manchester I recieve an email from some bloke with a double barrel name subject edocr.co.uk, I knew what this was and to be honest my heart sank…
The email that was sent to me says I carn’t tell anyone the contents of the document, which is bollocks but I carn’t be arsed with any more legal mumbo jumbo so I’ll just skip to the juicy parts and my comment..
1) I have bought the domain name to stop edocr ltd buying it… - edocr were told to buy the domain almost a year ago but chose not to..
2) I have bought the domain to decive people trying to find edocr…. HAVE YOU SEEN THE BIG LINK TO THE MAIN EDOCR PAGE
3) I am cyber squatting this domain for profit.…. yeah because the website looks serious, I mean the buy now button is just wanting to be clicked…
So the email says I have to give the domain over free of charge within 14 days…. well fine and dandy but that gives me 13 days to do what I want with the domain… or you can stop playing around with laywers and… I don’t know speak to me when we are in the same room, send a twitter about it, (I would say send a direct message but you followed me, I followed you and then you isntantly unfollowed me and thats not nice in my twitter book), I’m happy to give the domain back, but be fair and at least refund the registration fee (about a tenner)… (I won’t even charge for my HTML Skillz)
The truth is, I like you, I like the way your market and what your doing, I think edocr is a waste of time for you and you should move on to something that is going to work, but I think that you’ve handled this wrong….. You’ve got my phone number, email, twitter, my address, facebook, linked in and a tonne of other contact methods… Are you seriously saying that you’d rather pay a laywer a £150 an hour or whatever rate they are on to send me a prefabricated document which doesnt take into account any of the history…
Seriously thought they are lucky that I registered the domain because if it ever get popular, one of the first things a domain bot will do is buy all the free tld’s for the domain and point them to spammy pages, and they won’t have there contact details on hand and you’d have never got it back…
So they only got my name so easy because I made it CLEAR that I registered it (put my picture at the bottom of the page… *sigh*, I’m worn out, today was my last day at my current job and this email really has brought me down…
July 26th, 2008 at 11:28 am
I think now is the time to get your crack team out and demand the $1,000,000…
July 26th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Not surprised you’re annoyed! - I’d be seething too!
July 26th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
As an addition -
Does the registration of my company name with Companies House also mean that my trade mark is protected?
No. Company law is different from trade mark law. You cannot stop someone using a trade mark, which is the same or similar to yours, merely by registering your name with Companies House. For further advice on trade mark registration phone the UK Intellectual Property Office on 08459 500 505 or visit their website at http://www.ipo.gov.uk.
source : http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/infoAndGuide/faq/registerNewComp.shtml
and doing a trademark search, eDocr isn’t trademarked…
July 26th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
haha
A lawyer sending emails out in the middle of the night on a Friday! ha!
I bet he and his team were a bit tipsy at the time he sent you that email, possibly with some girl geeks
July 26th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Are you sure the email was genuine?
July 26th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
The Hodge has been had.
Lawyers don’t work night shifts.
July 26th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Personally, I think the registration falls foul of Nominet DRS, especially considering the page content.
One of my businesses is involved in buying/selling/marketing generic domains and we keep a close eye on Nominet DRS results. Manoj has a clear claim against you thanks to your invitation to “sell” the domain for an iPhone. It doesn’t matter if you intended it as a joke. The rules are pretty clear.
This has nothing to do with trademark law. Nominet’s rules are completely different.
What is incredibly sad is that it’s come to a legal letter followed by a blog/twitter response. The thing that really annoys me though is that this isn’t just damaging reputations, it’s damaging the community irreparably.
Write him an e-mail and offer to move it in the next 7 days in return for Nominet transfer costs (about £35+VAT?) and a cost of registration (£10?). Take the page down or do a redirect to edocr.com and move the hell on before this becomes something nasty.
July 26th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
before?
August 16th, 2008 at 10:56 pm
what id do… and you know i would because this is me speaking… is i’d review edocr and thern write a page on how shit it is… just to get back at them, then you have legitimate use for the domain and they cant do anything about it… or setup edocr.co.uk as a blog about bathrooms lol
September 1st, 2008 at 10:54 am
lawers, a other term for sneeky reptiles.
Greetings,
Mike