Khan Academy Buys Cybersquatted Dot Com
from the common-law-trademarks... dept
Earlier this year, I wrote about the Khan Academy, the online operation run by an old housemate of mine, Sal Khan. At the time, he was getting more and more (well deserved) press attention for the project. Since then, that attention has only increased, with Bill Gates giving him a shout out and Google handing him $2 million. But one thing he didn't have, apparently, was the domain name khanacademy.com. He said he was about to get it, but someone beat him to it.Dennis sent over an interesting story by a guy who helped Sal buy the dot com from the cybersquatter. It's an interesting story of how buying domains works (with a lot of questionable things happening in the background). In the end, they were able to purchase the domain for $2,988. They actually paid $5,000 initially, but the company running the auction later said it detected fraudulent bidding, and lowered the price.
That said, I wanted to point out an important mistake that the guy made -- which may have actually made this more costly. Here's what the guy wrote:
I checked to see if Sal had a trademark. If he had I would have suggested a WIPO action. It would have been a slam dunk. But Sal, busy teaching kids trigonometry for free, hadn't gotten one yet.And here's the mistake: you don't need a registered trademark in such a situation. Would it help? Perhaps, but it's really not necessary. All you need is a common law trademark, and that would be quite easy for Sal to demonstrate. The UDRP process has regularly said that common law trademarks are sufficient. In fact, WIPO has explicitly stated that no registration is necessary, and has regularly ruled for those holding common law trademarks, so long as they can show evidence as to why they hold a common law trademark.
It's kind of unfortunate that Sal and the author of that article had to go through this other process, as it likely cost them more than a straight UDRP dispute and the money they spent went to whoever squatted the domain. Oh well, perhaps it's just an educational moment -- and one Sal can use in a future video teaching others about trademarks, common law trademarks and the domain dispute process...
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Filed Under: common law trademark, domain auctions, domain dispute, domains, trademark
Companies: khan academy
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Not Sure a UDRP Would Have Been Cheaper
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Re: Not Sure a UDRP Would Have Been Cheaper
Ah interesting. I had looked around briefly, and I saw a price of $1,500, but perhaps that was only for some aspect of the process?
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Demand Media connection
So perhaps that's part of the Demand Media secret sauce to take note of before its IPO: making money by holding domains hostage, even if they are clearly associated with others' trademarks.
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travel zoo stock
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travel zoo stock
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Re: travel zoo stock
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Re: travel zoo stock
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Academy Name
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1. The Aga Khan Academies
2. The Khan Academy in Pakistan (unrelated I think).
3. Gengis Khan University in Mongolia (spelled CHINGGIS KHAAN)
4. Academy of Gengis Khan.
5. ...and plenty more...after all the name "Khan" is fairly common.
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Such is life, my friend.
-C
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(and for anyone who isn't familiar with the academy, go check it out now and brush up on some physics or something!)
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Re:
If I see that the town I am living in is growing and spreading to the south, should it be illegal for me to buy a large piece of farmland and let it sit because I know I can sell it to someone else at a later date for profit?
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Actually
I just went in and watched two Khaaaan! videos and I'm smarter for it. This will really help me brush up so that I can read The Calculus Diaries.
I guess it really does take a village to survive a zombie apocalypse.
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