When negotiating to buy a domain name, I have sometimes made a “best and final offer.” This offer is typically the most I am willing to pay for a domain name at the time, and the idea is to induce a sale because the domain registrant believes he will lose a deal if the final offer is not accepted. I don’t think this is necessarily the best approach for me.
When negotiating a deal to buy or sell a domain name, I think it is important to set deadlines with the other party to ensure the deal is done in a timely manner. I typically set deadlines on offers, on payment date, and on the domain name transfer. This is important for me because I don’t like leaving things in limbo for an extended period of time.
In my article about checking for trademarks, Jackie asked, “Why do you prefer trademarkia.com over trademark247.com?” The simple reason is that I had not used the other website before but found Trademarkia.com to be effective enough to continue using it. Essentially, it gave me the information I was seeking and I did not have a need to search around to find something else.
This morning, I visited Trademark247.com to see if it offered anything that would add more value to me. One thing I noticed on that website is a link to recent trademark filings. I am not sure if Trademarkia has that information, but I have not seen it before.
This morning, I wrote about Univision’s acquisition of the TUDN.com domain name. One thing I noticed just now is that Univision had filed for a trademark on TUDN in October of 2018. I think it is a good idea to look at trademark filings before negotiating the sale of a domain name. There are probably more than just a couple of reasons to look for a trademark before negotiating the sale of a domain name, but I will share two:
As you may have heard, a company called Close acquired the Close.com domain name after operating on Close.io since its inception. The company detailed how it acquired Close.com in a blog post, and I shared some of my thoughts about the company’s acquisition of Close.com.
I think there was one additional valuable takeaway from the story that I don’t think anyone really discussed. Despite the fact that the former owner had the awesome Close.com domain name before selling it, that startup ended up not being as successfully as originally hoped. From the Close blog post detailing the purchase:
This morning, I woke up to a long (and thoughtful) email asking me an extensive question related to buying a domain name when there are associated trademarks. The person used one of my domain names as an example but told me he was interested in buying a different domain name that he thought had a similar issue.
My response to him was “That is a better question suited for a lawyer with trademark expertise.”
