Savin Corp beating up a family organization

["W. David Samuelsen" <dsam@wasatch.com>]

What idiots at Savin Corp are doing to this family?? They could use
some help! See following message.

W. David Samuelsen

X-Message: #5
Date: Sun, 31 Oct 1999 20:34:11 +0000
From: Alan Savin <alan@savin.org>
Subject: UPDATE-dispute re domain name 

Firstly thank you for over 40 e-mail replies I have had to my original
posting. To remind you and for those that missed it the first time
around
this is the story so far.

Our family has the domain name "www.savin.org" named after our surname
of
SAVIN, we live in England. We received a letter from attorneys
claiming
infringement of the SAVIN trade mark of the Savin Corp. which is in
the
USA. They are asking for the domain name to be transfered to their
client,
which uses "www.savin.com". Our domain name has a web site reflecting
our
hobbies, including genealogy

I received 100% support, with 95% saying more or less the same, that
is;
how dare Savin Corp. do this, ask for money in exchange if they
persist
(WHICH IS NOT OUR OBJECT AT ALL) otherwise ignore the approach.

RECENT EVENT

One of these replies included the extract below


>The following is from USA Today 27/10/99:
>
>WASHINGTON - The House has voted to ban "cybersquatting", the pre-empting of 
>Internet domain names with the aim of selling those names to companies or
people 
>with trademark associations to them. The legislation would bar the bad faith 
>registration or trafficking in domain names that are identical to or
confusingly 
>similar to a distinctive trademark. It would also allow trademark owners
to seek 
>cancellation of an infringing domain name if they can prove they attempted
but 
>were unable to locate the owner of the name. Domain names are the addresses 
>computer users enter to access a particular Web site. The administration
opposes 
>the legislation, saying it would be better to allow courts to develop a
body of 
>case law in the area. 
>
>© Copyright 1999 USA Today
>

The above puts a different light on the situation now, especially the
phrase "it allows trademark owners to seek cancellation of an
infringing
domain name if they can prove they attempted but were unable to locate
the
owner of the name"

This would appear to force us to respond or possibly lose our domain
name. 

WE WOULD BE GRATEFUL FOR ANY FURTHER COMMENTS. Especially any further
news
in respect of this proposed legislation as here in England it has not
been
mentioned in our media at all. 

Thank you
Alan Savin

alan@savin.org

Maidenhead UK