Hi Margaret,

I find this dispute very disappointing. I could
understand your grievances if we were trying to cash
in your business. We have tired our hardest to convey
to you right from the beginning that we didn't sign up
for the .org name with any 'Bad Faith' as you keep
quoting.

I could also understand your grievances if our site
was related in even the slightest way with pornography
or child molestation sites. We are a cross stitch
site for goodness sake! How can you feel your site
will fall into disrepute by being vaguely connected
with our site?

As far as I can see, your complaint is both sites
share a name. Is this so bad? Why not make the most
of it. We would be willing to place a link to your
site from our site. I have been to visit your site
today. The products you sell would appeal to almost
everybody, ours will only appeal to people interested
in cross stitch. You could pick up a few more
customers from our cross stitchers.

You haven't accused us of trying to steal your
customers. This is because you know in your heart we
are not trying to harm you or your business.

As for the stray emails, it will take you one second
to delete those. We haven't infringed on your time by
asking you to forward any emails you might get that
were meant for us.

Same Name Conflict (quoted)

These types of cases are perhaps more difficult to
approach. This type of case includes the resulting
conflict between two different entities with the same
name or very similar names. Who has the right to
the name? This is where perhaps the crux of the
difficulties have come about in this controversy
because there is no clear argument that one company is
more entitled than the next to a given site name.

A complaint involving sting.com, filed by the singer
known as Sting, was denied for a variety of reasons,
principally that the domain name registrant was also
known by the same nickname, as well as the fact that
the name is a common word in the English language and
is not necessarily an exclusive trademark.

In general, you can't stop anybody from using commonly
used English work. You cannot trademark an English
word, so "Windows" is not a trademark, but "Microsoft"
and "Microsoft Windows" are both trademarks

You could trademark "Margaret's Designs on Demand". I
could trademark "Rick's Designs on Demand". We can
both legally do this because it's the the same thing
as Apple Records and Apple Computers.

We will both continue to see this argument from the
advantage of our own point of view.

I started my vacation yesterday. Please reconsider
co-existing with us in harmony.

If you are determined to take us to court, I will ring
my attorney Monday to make an appointment with him.
The appointment won't be until the middle of the
following week because I have to cancel my
reservations, try to get some kind of refund, book air
tickets and fly back home.

I will need from you the full name of the law firm
representing you, their email and postal address as
well as their phone number. I will also need you to
forward me the three emails you received with the full
headers. If you don't have those particular emails
now, we can have them subpoenaed from AOL at a later
date.

I will print out all the correspondence between us,
including all correspondence you have have with Donna
or Karen for my attorney.

If my attorney advises me we have a good chance of
winning to right to keep using the domain name
designsondemand.org because we didn't register it in
bad faith or with deception in mind, all further
correspondence will have to go through our respective
attorneys. I will also ask for any costs I have
incurred (reservation cancellation) be covered by you.

I will be honest. I didn't want it to end this way
but you refuse to bend so our hands are tired.

You might want to consider that it will be shown in
court that we have tried to reason with you in a
professional and courteous manner. It will also be
shown in court that you co-existed with the .net site
and no harm came to your .com site.

We, being Donna, Karen and myself are good people. We
do not try to make life miserable or hard for anybody.
All we are asking from you is to co-exist with us.

Believe me if we had known what kind of mess we were
going to end up in by innocently choosing a name that
fits the description of our site perfectly, we would
never have purchased the .org domain name.

If courts threw out every case where two sites share
the same name, the domain names ending with .net .org
and so on wouldn't be available for purchase because
too may lawsuits would ensue.

Now we have gone too far with our Designs on Demand to
let it go without a fight. We've spent the last five
weeks working night and day trying to get this venture
off the ground. I don't think you realise, it not
just a matter of choosing a new domain name and making
a few changes. If it were that simply, rather than
going through the legal process ahead, we'd purchase a
new name.

However, it isn't that simple! We'd have to start
from scratch and all our costs would be doubled. We
would have to pay for a new logo design, pay for new
banner designs we've already had made, which our
designers will place on their web site when we are
ready to open. We would have to re-do every pdf file
again because the Designs on Demand logo is in every
pdf file along with site URL. We'd have to change all
PayPal business information because a new domain name
will make our PayPal information untrue. The list is
endless.

I hope you now understand why we are not prepared to
let go of designsondemand.org without a fight. It's
been too much work and we don't believe we will be
hurting your business in an way whatsoever.

If we were unscrupulous people trying to undermine
your business I very much doubt your emails would have
got a reply at all. As it is, we did reply. We've
been courteous. We have tried to reassure you it is
not our intention to hurt or detract from your
business any way. All to no avail.

Is there anything we can do, to be able to co-exist in
harmony with you?

If, after taking time to consider all your options,
you still feel you cannot live with the .org site the
only action left to you is to send me the contact
information of the law firm who will be representing
you by Sunday night so I have the information when I
ring my attorney.

Sincerely,
Rick


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