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News Trademarks Video Games

Zynga applies for a trademark on the word: Patentville

patentville

If you thought Zynga’s trademark application for ville was the last of Zynga’s interesting European trademark applications, think again.

This week the gaming company filed for a trademark on the word “Patentville”, with the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM), the official trade marks and designs office of the European Union. 

According to the application, the trademark was filed to cover the following goods and services:

Leather and imitations of leather, and goods made of these materials and not included in other classes; animal skins, hides; trunks and travelling bags; umbrellas, parasols and walking sticks; whips, harness and saddler; bags.

Clothing, footwear, headgear; clothing, namely, t-shirts, sweatshirts, socks, jackets, button down shirts, polo shirts, dresses, skirts, jeans, shorts, sweatpants, aprons and headwear.

Education; providing of training; entertainment; sporting and cultural activities; entertainment services, namely, incentive award programs designed to reward program participants who create new inventions or engage in the creation of patentable ideas; entertainment services, namely, providing online computer and electronic games, enhancements within online computer and electronic games, and game applications within online computer and electronic games; entertainment reviews of computer games and information relating to computer games; entertainment services provided via virtual environments in which users can interact through social games for recreational, leisure or entertainment purposes.

patentville trademark application

What about the domain name: Patentville.com?

What’s strange about this trademark application by Zynga, is that the gaming company doesn’t own the domain name, patentville.com. 

Does not owning the dot com web address mean Zynga has nothing planned online for patentville? 

It wouldn’t be the first time Zynga didn’t own the web address for one of its properties, as seen by its Fishville game which allows you to create your own aquarium on Facebook.  The gaming company uses fishville.net, instead of fishville.com.

So who owns the patentville.com domain name? 

The Law Office of Michael P. Eddy owns the domain, which is currently parked for sale at Sedo.  Michael P. Eddy is also the owner of  patent.org.

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News

Black Friday 2011: Frank Schilling’s NAMedia versus Kevin Ham’s Reinvent

Black Friday Sales

The competition for Black Friday is heating up between Kevin Ham and Frank Schilling, and there’s still more than 200 days left before the day that will kick off the 2011 Holiday shopping season.

Yesterday, Frank Schilling’s NAMedia launched Black Friday Sales – blackfridaysales.com – a domain name that Frank Schilling’s company acquired from RegistrarAds, Inc.  The name changed hands a week before Black Friday 2010 on November 19th.  The sale was brokered by Sedo.com for $90,000 USD.   

A message posted on the Black Friday Sales’s Facebook page reads: “BlackFridaySales.com is now live and with 7 months to go until Black Friday 2011 get ready for lots of tips, tricks and deals along the way.”

I’ve written for years about Kevin Ham’s blackfriday.com, from the initial launch to its present day state.  Now with Frank Schilling’s blackfridaysales.com added to the mix, it will be exciting to see how 2011 turns out for the different Black Friday websites.

Blackfridaysales.com, despite being parked this past holiday season, still managed to receive over 30,000 unique visitors in Nov. 2010 according to a rough estimate provided by Compete.

As shopping stores get more crowded each year at Black Friday, it looks like the competition online is also seeing bigger crowds.

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News

Newly registered domain names good enough for The San Diego Union-Tribune’s Daily Deal website

San Diego Union-Tribune's daily deal website

The domain name is 18 characters long, cost around $10, and was created on April 8, 2011, but it’s still good enough for The San Diego Union-Tribune. 

Greatestdailydeals.com was one of many domain names hand-registered this week by The San Diego Union-Tribune, which launched its Daily Deal website last April on the URL: dailydeal.signonsandiego.com.  Surprisingly, among the list of newly created domain names, are hyphenated names like greatest-daily-deals.com and top-daily-deals.com.  

The domain purchases follow the Union-Tribune’s acquisition of the lifestyle website DiscoverSD.com. 

And while some companies are shutting down their group buying ventures in face of fierce competition from GroupOn and Living Social, the Union-Tribune is growing.

According to the Sign On San Diego article about the purchase of DiscoverSD.com, “The deal will allow the Union-Tribune to expand its popular “Daily Deal” program, which is expected to generate $10 million this year in new revenue. The U-T’s “Daily Deal” offers discounts of 50 percent to 90 percent off prices at local restaurants, spas, golf courses and other businesses. The Union-Tribune keeps a share of the sales.”

Oddly enough, Union-Tribune didn’t register other domain names like greatestdailydeal.com – which is available at the time of this story.  BuyDomains currently owns the domain greatdailydeals.com and has it priced to sell for $2,088.

I often write about “group buying” and “domain names”.  Despite sales not being astronomical, a domain like dailybargains.com which sold for $10,500 in 2010 – seems like a “deal”.

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News

Google to offer free WiFi everywhere? WaziWiFi.com registered [UPDATED]

Google WiFi hotspots

I’ve been wrong before about the reasons behind domain name registrations by large corporations, as seen with my story on Amazon Android Tablets published over a week ago.  Yet, that story still got press coverage from CNNMoney, The Next Web, and Business Insider, despite my initial thoughts on the domain registrations being wrong.

Here’s another rumor for you that’s just in. 

Google is planning to offer “free” WiFi Hot Spots everywhere.  Or at least the company is planning to expand beyond Mountain View, California, where it currently offers coverage.  The Mountain View WiFi network started being offered in 2006.

Earlier this week, Google registered the domain name, waziwifi.com (Whois Record). 

While the term “wazi” isn’t something you’ll find in the English dictionary, in Swahili “wazi” means “open”. 

News of Google’s Ultra high-speed broadband in Kansas City, Kansas, was announced late last month on the Offiicial Google Blog, but according to Google’s FAQ page for its Google Fiber for Communities, as far as a wireless component being offered, Google had to say this: “Our focus is on developing a fiber-to-the-home network and we have no plans to include a wireless component at this stage. In general, we think wireless and wireline services are complementary, because wireless networks offer a nice degree of flexibility, while wireline networks can currently reach greater speeds.”

Will ultra high-speed WiFi hot spots hosted by Google be making there way across the United States?  Who knows, but in the meantime, here’s a look at the registrant record. 

Registrant:
        DNS Admin
        Google Inc.
        1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
         Mountain View CA 94043
        US
         +1.6502530000 Fax: +1.6502530001

    Domain Name: waziwifi.com

        Registrar Name: Markmonitor.com
        Registrar Whois: whois.markmonitor.com
        Registrar Homepage: http://www.markmonitor.com/

Created on…………..: 2011-04-06.
    Expires on…………..: 2013-04-05.
    Record last updated on..: 2011-04-06.

[Updated on August 30, 2011:.Google launches Wi-Fi in Nairobi.]

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News

Twitter’s t.co domain licensed under the .CO Founders program, officially granted to Twitter (early)

Twitter link service t.co

Last June, Twitter joined the .CO Founders Program with the single letter domain t.co, and the popular microblogging website  used t.co over the past year as part of a service to protect users from harmful activity.   

This week, Twitter was officially granted the domain name t.co from the .CO registry (according to Whois records), in what appears to be an early move by the .CO registry permitting Twitter to register the domain name with their own registrar.

According to the original fine print of the .CO Founders Program, each domain licensed would be granted to the applicant after the applicant met all terms and conditions of the agreement after a minimum of 2 years (or sometimes longer for domains considered “Super Premium” by .CO Internet).  However, in the case of t.co, Twitter has been granted the name much sooner.

You better believe Twitter got a bargain.

Companies like Overstock.com opted to purchase .CO domains.  Overstock paid $350,000 for the single letter domain, o.co.

Other companies like GoDaddy, which was licensed x.co under the .CO Founders program have not been granted the domain as of yet.