Anyone have any experience with a cybersquatter?  I decided on Christmas to start a local business in Maine and protected a .me site as I wanted a local name/feel.  I then talked to some business folks from the state and decided that trademarking the business name was the best course of action.  I got a state of Maine trademark and on the day it issued someone else in the state jumped in and registered my business name.com which means to me that the state must at that point have made my name public.

From my reading I'm pretty sure this is illegal cybersquatting so I informed that person that it was my trademark and sent e-mails to the Secretary of State and ICANN.  Was this wise?  Anyone have any advice?  Now I notice that my webpage has a "Certificate Error".

Maybe this is pathetic, but I'm actually loosing some sleep over this.  You pour a lot into a startup and this just seems so scummy.

I wish I had registered both webnames before trademarking to avoid this kind of garbage.  I was just trying to keep my business name relatively secret until I got my trademark....ironic that getting the trademark led to this.

Thanks,
Greg

People Eating Tasty Animals (PETA) snagged peta.org before the better known PETA, and if I remember correctly, they were sued and won. It will probably cost you some $ and aggravation to solve it, either way - lawsuit or paying them off.

Some years ago when everyone was developing websites, some enterprising people starting scarfing up all the .com names that big corporations would  use, e. g., Ford.com. Bayer.com, Kleenex.com and it didn't take long for the corporate lawyers to bring to bear the trademark infringement theory. Others just paid a ransom. I am surprised these shenanigans still go on, but for the scent of money. I think you did the right thing and I think you might have to push a little  harder. As an alternative, you might try registering as a .org or .biz, unless they cabbaged those, too.

Send them a cease and desist order with threats of court  action referencing your legal trademark documentation. Try to get them to transfer it to you and you reimburse them for the registration fee. 

If it's just am individual, sometimes that will scare them into compliance.   If it's someone that fits this all the time, you would probably have to file a suit against them. 

I sent an e-mail to the person and they just wrote back to me.  We will discuss this and hopefully resolve it.  I think their intention was to use the same business name, but we shall see.  Hopefully we will avoid lawyers/lawsuits.  I always think that direct communication is the best starting point.  Thanks for your comments guys.

Web property is as valuable to a company as actual property.  I remember waay back when web presences were just beginning, I was director of sales and marketing for a small manufacturing company.  I talked my boss into paying for a web site with our name.com.  We got a lot of business and credibility from that site, and one day we got a letter from another company offering to pay us for the site name, but my boss was having none of that.  Luckily there was no law suit, but often companies use the same name.  Bummer.  Good luck with this!

To anyone here with a web site, please put your contact information on every page.  Some people won't bother to look.  Make it easy for them to call you and place an order!

Suzi

I would be suspect if they say they are just an "individual". I used to own diaperbag.com, as I had patented a diaper bag that was rated "Best" by WSJ. When I decided to sell the URL I got an email from a "person" who balked at wanting to pay $4000.00. Now I realize I could have asked a whole lot more! You have to be cunning as a fox these days.

Edit: IOW, don't let anyone pull your heart strings and if money is transferred use an escrow service.