New 911 UK forum

[pconibere]

Hello people,

I am about to launch a new 911 discussion forum, mainly aimed towards UK
owners, but of course everyone is welcome

www.911uk.com

Hope to see you there!

[PetrolTed]

Carry on using that domain name and you'll have Porsche on your arse. They're very hot on protecting their trademarks.

[pconibere]

Seriously? Have other people been made to give up their domain names do you know?

[PetrolTed]

Yep, there was a crack down about a year ago. Certainly anything with 'Porsche' was taken offline. I'm trying to remember what Rennlist was called before that. It certainly was forced to change its name.

Have a search on the web these days for sites with Porsche in the URL. You'll not find many.

[domster]

Poor Henry at 911virgin.com had the buggers at Virgin having a go at him as well - a potential two litigants for one domain name? The world has gone mad - it's not like I'll confuse Henry's nice little used car site with an official Porsche GB one.

[pconibere]

I suspect they are more concerned with domains with "porsche" in them, than say "911", "944" etc. as 911virgin and 911-classified are still operating.

- I Hope! -

I say this beacuse my site is totally non-profit making and is just a hobby, I'm hardly drawing on the profits of Porsche UK!

>> Edited by pconibere on Tuesday 19th February 12:38

[Whoozit]

Rennlist used to be called Porschelist, John Dunkel changed it after Porsche AG's lawyers started calling. Other Porsche-related businesses using "Porsche" in their names have been pressured to change. There has been less pressure outside the US, as I understand. I helped set up a UK-based Porsche 928 site called 928UK and we have never been approached for misuse of the Porsche name or trademarks. I think numbers are a little more difficult to enforce trademark rights than actual names.

[ninja_eli]

Actually you cannot copyright numbers at all. This is why Intel had to drop the 486 sucessors intended name of 586 after it clear that you cannot copyright numbers.

Shouldn't really be a problem, I dont think as they can't stop you using a number under copyright law, so what other angle could it be construed under??

Regards

[domster]

Although... the reason why the 911 is called the 911 is because that Peugeout wouldn't let them call it 901, as they 'owned' numbers constructed thus: 'x0x'.

Not massively up on trademark law, but depends on what category you tradmeark under. i.e. I could call my car a Pentium without Intel having a go at me, as it relates to cars not pooters.

[Fatboy]

I thought intel called it the pentium because some clever bugger had already registered 586 before they did?

[domster]

To recap, from what I know re a rusty Law degree including Intellectual Property...

1) you can trademark numbers, you can even TRY and trademark a smell or noise!!! (you may not succeed though)

2) the Intel story is most likely to be that someone trademarked 586 in the same category, ie computer chips, and this prevented Intel from subsequently protecting it. However, trademarks are not given if there is potential for passing off and confusion - and many are refused. If a judge ruled that any 'x86' designation was seen by the general masses to be an Intel product, they would not let Acme Computer Chips claim rights over 586.

[marki]

quote:
I thought intel called it the pentium because some clever bugger had already registered 586 before they did?

The intel thing was because they wanted to distance themselves from all the other chip makers .

[pconibere]

... I probably get to keep www.911uk.com by the looks of it then

PS Thanks for the comments on the forum.