To trademark one of Rick Schwartz’s domain names — Guy tries

This one will be interesting.

This morning I was perusing recently filed trademark applications when I came across an application for Trademarking.com.

When I checked the whois on the domain name, I saw that the domain was registered to domain name investor Rick Schwartz. But the firm that filed the trademark was Trademark King in Indiana.

TrademarkKing.com (with two k’s) is registered under whois privacy, so I thought perhaps the trademark applicant owns this domain and the application was merely a typo. I picked up the phone and called the applicant to verify this was the case.

To my amazement, it’s not. The president of the applicant stated he didn’t like how the domain name looked with two k’s, so he just used one. (He also filed a trademark application for “Trademark King”.)

When I explained that someone else owned the domain name Trademarking.com, he stated he didn’t know that but that it doesn’t matter. He explained that he buys and sells trademarks, and if he trademarks it first, then it doesn’t matter who owns the domain name.

In fact, he stated he’d have his lawyer demand that the domain name “be taken down”.

Please pass the popcorn.