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Ask HN: Startup with same name as mine, what should I do?

3 points by DirtyAndy ↗ HN
A couple of years ago a friend and I developed a product which we never really pursued that hard as we went off and did other things. The website still exists and runs, but we don't have any users, do any marketing etc. I don't know if we will ever go back and pursue it, but I wouldn't want to close that door either.

At the time we could only get the .net of the domain we wanted. The .com was being used in a completely different field. Last year it came up in a domain auction but the bidding went higher than I was willing to pay so I missed out.

Now someone is getting ready to launch a new website on the .com doing exactly the same thing as what our system does.

My question is can or should I do anything about it, do I have any rights with prior use of the name etc (product name is same as domain etc)?

4 comments

[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 18.6 ms ] thread
kno
One way to do something about it is to trademark the business name, that may force the new company to chose a different name for its business.
minalecs
agree.. groupon used this same tactic to get their name. The story someone had the name.. they trademarked it so the other party was not able to do anything with groupon, and was forced to sell. You will either get paid at some future date for the .net name, pay for a trademark and force them to switch.. or possibly they will buy both the trademark and domain.
DirtyAndy
I don't really want to go through the expense of trademarking it (£250 starting price in UK) and on a seperate note I find what Groupon did very unethical (although the guy got a really nice payout).

I'm more interested (if anyone knows) whether I should be sending these guys an email pointing out that I already operate a website in the same space with the same name and whether prior use (without a trademark) counts for anything. They haven't launched yet, and I don't want to find in two years time that I cannot use my domain.

matthewphiong
I think the best is to rebrand your product/service since you don't have any users, yet. That's the easiest way out to avoid any legal battle/cost.