Armor.com and Armour.com domain names have been sold!

Both domain names were owned by Arms & Armor, Inc. of Minneapolis, MN and registered at Network Solutions for a very long time.

Both domain names have now transferred to NetNames Ltd.

The Arms & Armor website states that “Our new domain name is arms-n-armor.com! Please update your bookmarks now.” confirming the change of ownership. There was also a mention in the news section of the website dated August 17, 2015 and an August 10, 2015 statement on the company’s Facebook page.

“Arms & Armor, Inc. has been producing world-renowned replicas of Medieval and Renaissance weapons and armor for more than twenty five years” according to its website.

They have owned both premium generic domain names Armor.com and Armour.com since at least 2001, which is the oldest historical whois history records provided on DomainTools.com and potentially dating back to the current creation dates for both domain names:

• Armor.com has been registered since September 12, 1995
• Armour.com has been registered since September 12, 1995

Potential buyers?

There are plenty, but we have to look at some clues in place.

NetNames is a corporate brand protection domain service provider.

Under Armour has the vast majority of its domain names registered with CSC Corporate Domains.

Under Armour is a logical buyer though and owns about 859 domain names according to DomainTools.com reverse whois.

Under Armour owns a fair amount of domain names containing both “Armour” (more) and “Armor” (less) terms.

In a story by the WashingtonPost.com a few days ago  titled “Under Armour is suing pretty much every company using the name ‘Armor’” the company the story was talking about was Armor & Glory being sued.

“The trademark-infringement lawsuit filed this month in Maryland federal court has sparked a messy David-versus-Goliath battle in the fringes of American athletic wear and cast an unflattering spotlight on how fiercely the Baltimore-based giant intends to guard its brand and fight its way to the top.”

“Under Armour’s attorneys at the Washington-based Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, one of the world’s largest intellectual-property firms, wrote that Armor & Glory should have to destroy all products, hand over its domain name and any profits, and pay Under Armour’s attorney’s fees and damages of $100,000 or more.”

That domain name is, ArmorGlory.com, registered January 28, 2013.

Under Armour, Inc. (UA)  has used the UDRP process, with 3 wins since October 2013 according to UDRPSearch.com. Two cases were filed in 2013 and one in 2015

My gut though is telling me that UA may NOT be the buyers of the Armor.com and Armour.com domains. I would feel more confident if the domains were under generic whois data at CSC and not at NetNames. I see more UK based companies using NetNames in general through my daily research.  UnderArmour.co.uk is even registered with CSC.

Since both domain names are so generic, we will have to “wait and see” until whois updates out of generic status or until the domain names are put into use, but Under Armour would be a potential buyer.

Both domain names Armor.com and Armour.com are redirecting to Arms & Armor Inc.’s new double hyphen domain Arms-n-Armor.com, which just may be the worst domain name down grade ever after a big payday? It is not uncommon when a company’s “main domain name” is purchased, that the sellers request a specific amount of time to alert customers of the domain name change for a period of time to alert them. That is the likely reason the domain names are still redirecting to the past owners website currently.

If Under Armour were not the buyers of the domain names Armor.com and Armour.com, will UA try to obtain the domain names by legal means due to the recent change of ownership on them?

That will be something we keep an eye on.