There's no i in Realty. -mis-spelled domain name issues

I wouldn't waste your time and money with lawyers.  Domain names are basically only protected by federal trademark registration.  If your name Prest Realty is a federally registered trademark, you have a chance, but it will still cost you money and time.  Lots of it, I'm sure.   You cannot federally register a personal name like Prest, so I highly doubt if you have any case whatsoever.  In fact, I would almost say for sure that you have none. Even if they actually registered your real domain name before you had, you still wouldn't have a case unfortunately. I wouldn't worry about the incorrectly spelled version.

I've been down this legal road before - I wouldn't waste even 5 minutes on it, as you won't get anywhere - it's not worth the effort. 

I always tell clients to buy every possible version of your domain including misspellings as it is a low cost insurance that someone else will not... because they will.  Guaranteed.

Ann...  unfortunately, a DBA name is worthless in regards to domain names.  The only thing that actually matters in court disputes for domain names is a federally registered trademark.  And you can't register a personal name.  

As far as a DBA, if the company is VERY WELL known in a marketplace.... VERY WELL known....   you could possibly win in that situation, that someone is purposely trying to divert business away. And the sole decision would be up to the judge to decide.  However, it would cost in the TENS of thousands of dollars to get involved in a suit like that, and it's a 50/50 chance of winnin.

Unfortunately, I've been down this road before.....

If you're ever really concerned about domain names, etc., it would be worth the small cost to federally register your name.  Then you actually have a strong case with ICANN.

There are a lot of folks who specialize in getting misspelled domain names.  Here's the question I have for you....would you have ever registered the other domain?  If you would not have done so (and I don't know that I would have), then just forget about it.  Now, if you WOULD have registered the other domain, then that's another matter.  Federal trademarks are pretty strong legal tools, but you do have to enforce them.  I looked at the site, and it's just a bunch of "reality" type links; they don't appear to be going after your clients.  So, even a trademark on PrestRealty might not get you anywhere since reality is a genuine word and it doesn't appear that there is any consumer confusion being generated (i.e., the other site doesn't look like yours or seeks to go after your clients).  Anyway, just some thoughts.

JohnH.

PS: We did take a trademark on our corporate identity so we could protect it if need should arise.

Elements required for trademark infringement:

1. Prior rights in the trademark - either through use or registration.
2. Commercial use
3. Likelihood of confusion - there are 8 factors generally considered in determining likelihood of confusion and they are subject to a wide variety of interpretations and thus it is very difficult to predict accurately how a court will resolve the balancing of the factors.

Note the wording "either through use or registration" which implies that you do not need to federally register your trademark to protect it from infringement.  Cybersquatters have lost almost every case that ever went to trial because courts have no reason to side with a business model built on defrauding the consumer by creating confusion with a legitimate business.  Cybersquatters are the scum of the earth, but unfortunately much of their revenue comes directly from your pocket through advertising for REALTOR.com, state and local AOR real estate portals, and major real estate chains.  I wish organized real estate would set higher standards for their business partnerships, but the leadership is sadly oblivious to this issue and the volunteer directors don't have enough time to provide meaningful oversight of staff decisions on matters like this.

Your best bet would be to contact the legal department of your local or state AOR to see if they can provide a cease and desist letter that you can send to the cybersquatter and to the cybersquatter's domain host.  Cybersquatters will often give up rather than fight because they know they will likely lose in court.

I posted links to relevant articles in my AR blog a few weeks ago.  Look for cybersquatting or fugazi search engines.

Back in the year 2000 when I first started buying property to fix up and rent, I filed an assumed name with our court house as Positive Properties. A couple of years later, I checked online to see if anyone else was using that name, and they weren't but I wasn't ready for a website. I recently opened a Real Estate company a little over a year ago, and wanted to keep the name being I was going to be doing a lot of the same business that I had been doing. I checked for the domain and it was taken and I could purchase it for 700+. I decided to go with Positive Properties, LLC as the business name and was able to get that domain name. I checked to see if the name was available a couple of weeks ago without the LLC and the price was over 7000. I think someone bought it when they saw that I was interested in it so they could sell it back to me. What a rip off.

Tip: If any one is thinking about getting a domain name, be ready to purchase it if it is available.

Their business model is the get hits off the mispellings and make money on the paid links via GoogleAdWords or the like.  A real rip off company.