Major Wire Industries Limited has filed a UDRP on the domain name Major.com.
The domain name Major.com is owned by DigitalOne AG and seems to have bought the domain using Sedo, in November 2010 for € 48,000.00 EUR.
It appear according to Screenshots.com, the domain was parked until November 2011.
The domain resolves currently to a blank page.
The company Major Wire Industries Limited uses the domain name MajorWire.cc, for its website, however that domain name is owned by Les Industries Fil Metallique Major Ltee which also owns the domain name industriesmajor.com, which forwards to the .CC address.
The .CC address was registered in 2007.
The company does not seem to hold a trademark at the USPTO for the term “Major” although they do have a registered trademark symbol by the word Major on their site as you can see above.
The site also says the company has been around since 1884.
Michael-they were granted a TM on 10/11/2011 along with about 100 other “Major” names that people have in different industries. They could be just trying to hijack this domain. This is why there should be severe monetary penalties for this type of action if they don’t win.
I think your seeing more of this activity when the company has no intention of negotiating for or buying the domain name. They usually have a weak case but are willing to play the UDRP lottery to see if they can win. I had a company do this to me. They lost and we had a conversation afterwards. They basically told me (paraphrase): “We just wanted to see if we could win the name and avoid paying for it because people like you are slimy”. They apparently don’t believe that a generic domain holder will file suit.
What creates this “udrp lottery” mentality is the disconnect between what a federal court says is trademark infringement and the way that UDRP panels rule. Nothing illustrates that better than the AustinPain.com UDRP and resulting lawsuit. In the UDRP, all 3 panelists voted in favor of the complainant. The UDRP respondent filed a lawsuit in federal court. The trademark holder had such a weak case, they had to pay the domain holder $25k to avoid federal penalties for abuse of process .
Cases like this aren’t “close calls” or “gray area” cases. They didn’t even make it to summary judgement. The federal judge would likely have imposed sanctions. It was that kind of case. But yet meanwhile, those 3 panelists keep deciding cases. Thank God for the federal court system.
UDRP Lottery Mentality (ULM for short-lol) -that’s perfect-that’s exactly what it is.
Would they have treated and disrespected the owner of a piece of raw land that they wanted to own the same way that they treated you? No. They simply would have made a compelling offer in cash to entice you to sell. But, because it is a domain name, they behaved petulantly. There is an amazing sense of entitlement among prospective buyers that is unique to domain names – virtual raw land – that has no equal.
ICANN knows this very well. Its executives hired Post Doctoral Fellow Thies Lindenthal of the MIT Center for Real Estate to conduct academic research on the economic contribution of domain names to our economy and to society. ICANN personnel know domains are comparable to real estate, yet it implemented the faulty UDRP process, likely to gain good PR with big, established businesses.
ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade recently called domain investors, “hogs,” confusing them with, “cybersquatters,” in the next sentence.
The small business owner, investor, website developer is finally going to have to realize insiders from ICANN to Verisign to the major Registrars have the unspoken mission to separate you from your valuable domain names.
It’s a generic word … as long as the domain owner doesn’t use it to promote a product or service this company has TM’d interests in why would it be an issue? The word “Major” could be used in a multitude of ways. Unless the owner does something to sabotage themselves I can’t see how they could lose.
Isn’t it pretty clear that “Major” is synonymous with Major Wire Industries Limited? I know that whenever I hear the word “major” immediately what I picture is their lime-green logo with block black letters. Sometimes I see it in my dreams …
Back when I was in college and people would asked me, “What’s your major?” I always assumed they were inquiring about which variety of material I needed Major Wire Industries Ltd. screening products for –
“asphalt, slag, green waste, top soil” or “other related materials”. Slag. Mostly slag. But some green waste too, now & then, when at my most frisky.
So I’d always put my textbooks down and respond, “Well, lately I’m infatuated with their ‘Flex-Mat® 3 High-Performance, Self-Cleaning technology, now available in both tensioned and modular versions’; but I’ve been tempted to cheat by Major Wire Industries Ltd.’s Double-Weave™ or HyperSlot™ for increased throughput.”
Then my interlocutor would correct me. Turns out they were thinking about education. Weird, I know!
Speaking of Major Wire Industries Limited (or just plain “Major” as we all lovingly call them), I hear that the Army, Air Force, an Marine Corps have had problems for decades now with soldiers snickering every time they’d salute a Major. Obviously the armed forces had to spend about $10 million on that ongoing training program of theirs to emphasize that “major” can theoretically refer to an officer of rank O-4 and that, although “major” usually did mean an “innovative and superior screen media product line” to must of us, we ought to keep an open mind for the sake of military decorum.
Nevertheless, I hear those branches of the armed forces will be giving up and following the Navy’s example of calling an O-4 a “Lietenant Commander” instead. They gave “major” a sporting chance; but after a few centuries of trying to hammer the term home, they just couldn’t make it stick. Plus, I think (upon reflection) the Joint Chiefs of Staff wanted to show deference to the one and only Major – Major Wire Industries Limited, the (need I say it?) major “manufacturer of … screen cloth and screening media”.
Oh, and don’t get me started on all the confusion and cacophony this has caused musicians. “Major” keys?!?!? “Major” chords?!?!?! Huh? Hopeless.
Candiac, Quebec, where this venerable corporation is based is, of course, the navel of the universe. And I can’t begin to count the number of times each day I visit their site at majorwire.cc. Such cutting edge web design too!
We all know there is only 1 real “Major”.
Wherever there is debris to be tamped down, wherever there is rubble that needs to be held in place, wherever chaos threatens order … Major (like Superman) is there for us. We should all send Major an email expressing solidarity and volunteering whatever moral or logistical support we can … as these noble heroes go after that nefarious cybersquatting criminal owner of Major.com.