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February 26, 2009

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Richard Stewart

Here's my situation:

I own a business called RvStewartRentals, which specializes in the rental of privately-owned motorhomes and travel trailers. Last year, I was an agent for an owner who had ten units on my site at http://www.newmexicorvrentals.com and I did quite well for him. This year he decided to represent himself and set up his own website, http://www.sterlingrvrentals.com, which is his legal right; however, he has done a couple of things that I believe are a blatant infringement on my business:

1. He lifted the designed content of his units from my site, including the link pages, and placed them on his site. (Although I have removed his units from my site, I still have them saved.)

2. Knowing that I do not use my trade name in my URL, he has purchased a URL with my business name in an attempt to direct RV rental business to his page: http://www.rvstewartrentals.com. He also uses another URL address very similar to mine: http://www.nmrvrentals.com.

I've been in business for more than 35 years and he's just starting out; the theft and deceit from my many years of experience is quite obvious.

What would be the best course of action to take on this?

Thank You,

Richard V. Stewart

Joy R. Butler

Hi Richard,

I cannot provide specific legal advice through this blog. Through the blog, I provide only general information about legal issues.

One possible course of action for you would be to schedule a consultation with an attorney to review the specific circumstances of your situation and discuss whether you have any copyright, trademark, domain name, or other claims against your former client.

corey

If you were to purchase the domain of a famous athlete say Tim Tebow and you purchased TimTebow.com Could you develop a fan site and try to sell jerseys and other merchandise from Tim and his university or wouuld that be some sort of infringement? Also, if Tim came to you and wanted the rights to his name, would you be required to turn over the site per the Bernard Berrian case? I am confused about what constitutes cybersquatting and where exactly that line is drawn.

Joy R. Butler

Corey,

See my response to your comment at
http://www.businesstransactionsblog.com/2010/01/are-fan-site-operators-cybersquatters.html

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