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It doesn't matter. If a court finds the contract was made under duress it could invalidate the whole thing including any litigation waivers.

by ig1 16y ago

notahacker 16y ago
True, but again, I don't think the conversation took place exactly as outlined in the summary. If they were making veiled legal threats they'd have lowballed on price. An approach along the lines of "we really, really want the name and will pay big bucks for you to relinquish your rights to it; however much you like the name our trademarks are going to make it difficult for you to succeed with it and we're offering you way more than you'll conceivably make off parking income" doesn't seem unduly threatening
- ig1 16y ago
  It depends on the context really, 250k may have been a low-ball offer, without knowing what they offered pre-trademark I guess it's hard to say. But yeah it depends exactly what was exchanged between the two parties, but even saying "our trademarks are going to make it difficult for you" could be considered as crossing the line, the UK has fairly stringent rules to prevent frivolous IP threats.
anigbrowl 16y ago
But where do you see the threat here? They haven't tried to interfere with business operations or asserted the English guy would face a loss if he did not comply with their requests. All they did was advise him of their success in getting the mark and warn him off using the domain to infringe upon it in the future. His investment in the domain seems limited to the registration costs for a year or two, and there's no evidence he ever put time or money into building up any kind of business identity for it. If he had elected to just sit there and keep renewing, and www.groupon.com just took you to a blank page saying 'not affiliated with the Groupon company', nothing bad would have happened. I personally think that having made $250k for doing very little other than have a good idea, he's feeling extremely pleased right now and the last thing on his mind is spending his windfall on bringing a court case of dubious merit.

It doesn't matter. If a court finds the contract was made under duress it could invalidate the whole thing including any litigation waivers.

by ig1 16y ago

It doesn't matter. If a court finds the contract was made under duress it could invalidate the whole thing including any litigation waivers.

notahacker 16y ago

True, but again, I don't think the conversation took place exactly as outlined in the summary. If they were making veiled legal threats they'd have lowballed on price. An approach along the lines of "we really, really want the name and will pay big bucks for you to relinquish your rights to it; however much you like the name our trademarks are going to make it difficult for you to succeed with it and we're offering you way more than you'll conceivably make off parking income" doesn't seem unduly threatening

ig1 16y ago
It depends on the context really, 250k may have been a low-ball offer, without knowing what they offered pre-trademark I guess it's hard to say. But yeah it depends exactly what was exchanged between the two parties, but even saying "our trademarks are going to make it difficult for you" could be considered as crossing the line, the UK has fairly stringent rules to prevent frivolous IP threats.

anigbrowl 16y ago

But where do you see the threat here? They haven't tried to interfere with business operations or asserted the English guy would face a loss if he did not comply with their requests. All they did was advise him of their success in getting the mark and warn him off using the domain to infringe upon it in the future. His investment in the domain seems limited to the registration costs for a year or two, and there's no evidence he ever put time or money into building up any kind of business identity for it. If he had elected to just sit there and keep renewing, and www.groupon.com just took you to a blank page saying 'not affiliated with the Groupon company', nothing bad would have happened. I personally think that having made $250k for doing very little other than have a good idea, he's feeling extremely pleased right now and the last thing on his mind is spending his windfall on bringing a court case of dubious merit.