Legal Claim -> Welcome, Skin Doctor (1.Viewing)

Welcome to Domain Names Canada, S @Skin Doctor.

Thank you Admin could you please direct me to who own skkn.ca?

I own that domain, it's already pointed to a for sale page where you can make an offer on it.

May I inquire how you came to be here asking about it?

Of all the kardashian brands, I don't think a single one makes use of the .ca... I don't think they care - they're just sticking with the .com/country

MapleDots said:

May I inquire how you came to be here asking about it?

Click to expand...

The skkn brand belongs to me in Canada, I will reimburse you for the registration fee but ask you to immediately refrain from advertising the domain. Should you sell the domain to another party I will start legal proceedings to reclaim all costs associated with recovering the domain.

Skin Doctor said:

The skkn brand belongs to me in Canada, I will reimburse you for the registration fee but ask you to immediately refrain from advertising the domain. Should you sell the domain to another party I will start legal proceedings to reclaim all costs associated with recovering the domain.

Click to expand...

So I've got no horse in this race, but, I do have a whole bunch of thoughts.

First off, there is only one set of trademarks that give anyone any bit of claim to SKKN as a trademark in Canada.

http://www.cipo.ic.gc.ca/app/opic-cipo/trdmrks/srch/home?lang=eng

Searching for SKKN shows 3 active trademarks, all by "Kimsaprincess Inc."

There is also evidence of a corporation being created in Alberta called "SKKN INFOTECH LTD" in October 2021, which was several months later than the domain in question was registered. I'll also note that there are no results in Google when searching for "SKKN INFOTECH", nor any results when searching LinkedIn Canada for "SKKN". So there is no obvious evidence to the public of the existence of SKKN INFOTECH. SKKN INFOTECH LTD would have zero case against the owner of the skkn dot ca domain name - due to a later registration date, not to mention that would be a very weak mark in that its just a provincial corporation name, no actual trademark was even applied for.

If by chance you were licensing the rights to SKKN from "Kimsaprincess Inc.", then its 99.9% likely that your agreement does not grant you the rights to ownership of the term "SKKN" either, they will still want to control their brand, you would be a licensee for marketing/distribution/sales/etc... Furthermore, it is Kimsaprincess that holds the trademark, therefore they would need to be the ones to bring it up with the skkn dot ca owner, and if they negotiated ownership of the domain from the current owner, then Kimsaprincess could then grant you permission to use the domain as part of your licensing right to SKKN in Canada.

I'd also like to point out that there could also be other potential legitimate uses for SKKN as it could be an acronym for something else. Acronym domains are generally any 2, 3 and 4-letter domain names and regarded as one of a dozen or so generic investment grade classes/categories of domain names. Investors in these types of domains will generally have many similar 4-letter domains as part of their investment strategy. The mere existence of SKKN INFOTECH LTD helps reinforce the fact that there are multiple potential uses for SKKN - not just solely used by Kimsaprincess Inc. I'd also like to point out that the past is the best indicator of the future. So if multiple companies have tried to use the term SKKN in different industries in the past, then it is equally likely there will be others in the future - meaning that the domain owner has a real potential for making an eventual sale of the domain in the next 20 years or more (which a hold time that long would not be uncommon in the industry). Obviously the argument would be much stronger if there were more than two existing users of the term SKKN in Canada, but two is still way better than one.

Furthermore, the trademarks held by Kimsaprincess would only give protection in certain approved products and/or services - not every potential use. Unless you've seen the owner using the domain to provide similar goods or services in those categories, no infringement would have taken place either.

Are you ( S @Skin Doctor) related to either of the above mentioned entities? Its just a pretty big claim to stake without any evidence, so I'm just curious where your claim of ownership to the term skkn originates? I'll be honest, I'm hoping we have Kim Kardashian right here on our little dn.ca board, lol !!!