Overstock.com Turns Into an Online Bully

In recent month any domain owners which have any domain that has the word “overstock” got a very nasty letter from overstock.com which explains how its trademark rights where infringed. The domain owners where ordered to transfer their domain immediately to Overstock.com or ells they would be getting themselves into a big lawsuit for cussing overstock.com losses of millions of dollars.

A quick check shows that on 2003 the traded company Overstock.com got its trademark for the name overstock.com. For some reason they could prove in 375 pages to the trademark registrar office that the name overstock.com is know in the public domain as their company only. Legally, to be able to have the trademark, overstock.com was obligated to show that the company operates as a market place and not only a private online store. For that reason, overstock.com operated for a short time a market place where by individuals can buy and sell their goods. Shortly after registering the trademark the marketplace was taken out and overstock.com could have focused on selling its own goods and get a premium price and enjoying of having a trademark for a generic name which was in the public domain for hundreds of years. The registrar office never bothered to check and see that there are more than 4000 domains owned small businesses which specialize in selling overstock goods, or simply by individuals which own domains involving the work overstock. It turns out those companies such as Merchandize Liquidators which owned the domain abcoverstock.com was forced to give it up. It was very frustrating for its webmaster which made the site abcoverstock.com a top ranking site on the search engines. Other sites owners which own strong sites such as http://www.overstocks.com/ and http://www.appareloverstock.com/ decided to fight and not give up easily. Since all people got their letters on 2006, the obvious question was why did overstock.com waited up until then?


First, on 2006 overstock.com decided to go after the trademark overstocked.com and had prove to that the public associate hat only with overstock.com since they speeded millions of dollars to be affiliated with that name. It still’s pending and its objective is to take out all the domains with the word overstock overstock.com could show that no one else uses phrases with overstock but them. The other reason is that sites which are ranked high on the search engine for related key terms such as “overstock clothing” can generate free traffic which has a high sales conversion.

I did some more searing and found that overstock.com is trying to get the trademark for law.com. Can you believe it?