Domain Gang wrote about projectethereum.com being lost in a UDRP. Stiftung Ethereum (Foundation Ethereum) the people behind the cryptocurrency filed the UDRP.
The question on a lot of people’s mind is will they make a play for Ethereum.com?
The landing page on Ethereum.com makes it clear that the domain was registered in 2011, long before the cryptocurrency came along.
There are 8 live trademarks for “ethereum” one is for clothing.
So will we see an RDNH attempt now that the foundation has a win under their belt?
ethereum.com was registered too early for a UDRP to be legitametly successful. However anyone becoming a new owner would probably be hit straight away.
It will likely be another WashingtonJournal.com disaster in 2018, unless the current owner decides to build their own crypto-currency site…but if sold to a non-trademark holder it’ll be in UDRP quickly.
Stiftung Ethereum were the first ones to get a trademark on Ethereum in 2014 but still the domain predates by 3 years. The domain seems to be for sale now on the webpage when visiting ethereum.com
Three of the trademark applications for ETHEREUM including the one for clothing, are being opposed by the Swiss foundation.
Ethereum.com was originally registered in 2007 and dropped / re-registered 4 years later.
According to Wikipedia and the Ethereum trademark application, the mark’s first use was made in 2013. First use in commerce was made in 2014.
This doesn’t mean Ethereum.com is safe to use for anything and everything. Obviously, they’d have to avoid any use related to the cryptocurrency and associated technologies, software etc. But the term would be difficult to trademark on its own, as it’d be opposed. I don’t see how it’d fetch the asking price, particularly since the foundation is a non-profit.
“particularly since the foundation is a non-profit.”
It always strikes me how the term “non-profit” seems to conjure up an image of penury. Non-profits are some of the wealthiest and most lucrative businesses there are.
That’s possible, but not always the case. My point is, their biggest sole buyer is Ethereum.org and they seem to becoming aware of their brand’s valuation.
Ethereum is NOT a crypto currency like Bitcoin. They are 2 entirely different things. Etherium is fuel to conduct transactions on the Etherium platform and is closer to Ripple than Bitcoin. The purpose of Etherium and Ripple is to fund the developers. In a traditional system like Paypal they take fees from each transaction and that subjects companies like paypal to all sorts of regulations that vary from country to country and even state to state within the US. For things like Ripple and Etherium the model is to create a taken that is needed to complet transactions on thier platform. when you performa transaction on Ripple then you have to use up some Ripples to complete the transaxction. it is said Ripples are “destryed.” Because these tokens are really a type of investment offering they are regulated and the people who make Ripple paid a $750K fine to the SEC for seals they made with Roger Ver (aka, Bitcoin Jesus).
For Etherium there is the added issue that the system uses “turing complete” scripts for their transactions. this means programming loops. to avoid infinite loops you use up some tokens each time you pass through the loop so you would evetually run out of tokens and the program would stop.
Bitcoin is totally different, it is decentralized and the original developer is anonymous. While there were some trademarks in the early days I am not sure any trademark for Bitcoin involing its use as a cryptocurrency could be an enforceable trademark. I obtained the first trademark on the pricipal register in the US that contained Bitcoin with my “MILLY BITCOIN” registration. I actually used that to challange a bogus BITCOIN trademark registration and the guy just defaulted.
Etheruem is No.1 of crypto currency!
This is horse doodoo.
So, the Ethereum Foundation sues via @ICANN @WIPO rules to police its “trademark”, yet .ETH domain names (Ethereum domain names) do not follow WIPO, ICANN, or any nation’s intellectual property laws.
e.g., I can register McDonalds.ETH, and there is no government on earth that can seize that domain.
That is a bunch of hypocritical … horse doo doo.
The Ethereum Foundation has made it its mandate NOT to go through with UDRP cases UNLESS there is obvious fraud / bad press towards the Ethereum ecosystem. The Ethereum community is built upon standards of an open-source and inclusive environment. The foundation will go after only the most gregarious misuses of the trademark. Otherwise it’s in their interest to let good sites / business endeavours succeed using the Ethereum trademark as that increases the value of the entire ecosystem. Ethereum.***** are all safe as long as they are building products which benefit the community and not be large scale frauds/ponzis etc.