Company will help me protect my trademark by listing it on its low traffic web site for $1,117.00.
One of the more frustrating and misleading domain name shenanigans is the fake renewal notice. This notice, often sent via postal mail and disguised as an invoice, gets unsuspecting businesses to pay to renew their domain name. At the same time, they are unknowingly consenting to transferring their domain to a new registrar.
It’s bad. It’s misleading. It’s wrong.
But check out this doozie I just got in the mail from a company called Medianetcom. Their invoice-looking solicitation (pdf) asks me to list my registered trademark on its web site for only $1,117.00 for three years. What a steal!
Medianetcom has a few disclaimers on the “order form”, noting in small print that it’s not a legal requirement nor a mandatory service. But it also warns you that “Protecting a trademark from confusingly similar names in the responsibility of the owner and not of the US Patent and Trademark Office. Save your registered trademark in the media:net:com Trademark Internet Service and enjoy worldwide the recognition of your trademark.”
So listing my trademark on web site with little traffic for $1,117.00 will help protect my mark beyond a listing in the official USPTO web site?
Nope.
Of course, I’m sure a number of companies just process the order form as an invoice and send along the money.
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