Web development firm squares off with real estate firm over “Ascent” name

Two California firms will head to court of business name.

Electronic Creations Firm (ECC), a web development firm, has filed a lawsuit (pdf) seeking declaratory relief to fend of an attack from a California real estate firm.

ECC owns a number of good domain names, counting VH.com, Pup.com, We.org, and DuckPond.com.

It also owns AscentRealEstate.com. That caught the attention of Ascent Real Estate, a San Diego real estate firm using AscentRealEstate.net, which has apparently accused ECC of cybersquatting.

Like many of ECC’s domain names, the firm monetizes the AscentRealEstate.com domain name through the ZipRealty affiliate program.

It’s not quite clear when ECC became the owner of the AscentRealEstate.com domain name. It is clear that the domain was by now registered by someone when Ascent started its business in 2005, which is why the real estate firm opted to register the .net domain name.

ECC states it registered the domain name “…since the Ascent brand is positive and uplifting, and has religious connotations for one of the principals of ECC.”

That might be suspect if looked at in a vacuum. But the firm also registered other variations of “ascent”, counting AscendRealEstate.com, AscensionHomes.com, AscensionProperties.com, AscensionProperty.com, AscensionRealEstate.com, and AscensionRealty.com.

That lends more credibility to ECC’s argument.

On the surface, this seems like a case where the domain name is much more valuable to the real estate firm, and you’d hope the two parties could strike a deal.