Bain & Firm takes fight with BainConsultingGroup.com owner to court
Consulting firm sues man for copyright and trademark infringement of Bain name.
Bain & Firm, one of the world’s most prestigious management consulting firms and a former employer of presidential candidate Mitt Romney, is taking a Colorado man to court over his use of the “Bain Consulting” name and the domain name BainConsultingGroup.com.
As stated by Bain (pdf), it became aware of Jim Woods’ registration of BainConsultingGroup.com in February. The domain was registered on January 2, 2012 as stated by whois records.
Bain states that Woods set up the site to trade on Bain & Firm’s goodwill. It also alleges that he essentially copied and paraphrased content from Bain’s official web site. Bain also states that Woods lifted text off of other global consulting firm web sites.
The consulting firm sent Woods a cease & desist letter on March 1. On March 5, he allegedly responded:
Let’s see how the continuing negative publicity effects [sic] your business. We quite frankly would relish the publicity.
If still you wish to buy our rights to the name you may do so for $20,000. Otherwise go to hell.
Bain states that, just four minutes later, Woods emailed its in-house attorney and stated that if he didn’t receive an apology he would initiate a “social media onslaught” against Bain.
Fast forward to March 27, and Bain sent a third cease & desist letter to Woods. Woods responded with two emails. As stated by the suit, Woods closed the first email with “Uou [sic] can kiss my black asd [sic].”
His second email stated that any future correspondence from Bain will “be sent in the form of a blog to the universe”.
Woods’ web site at BainConsultingGroup.com right now shows a GoDaddy unavailable site page. Bain had complained to the registrar regarding the domain. For some reason the domain name no longer shows any whois record, although the domain is still registered at GoDaddy.
But Woods isn’t done, yet. On April 2 Woods allegedly contacted Bain’s outside counsel and told them he is “reopen[ing] the Bain Consulting Group” as part of a “guerrilla war” he was launching against Bain. As stated by Bain, Woods alluded to his earlier demand that Bain pay him money for the domain name.
Bain is suing Woods for federal trademark violation, unfair competition and false designation of origin, federal dilution, copyright violation, and violating the Anti-cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act.
