One of the first higher priced domain name sales that took place after the announcement of the iPad by Apple Inc. and related to the iPad name was iPad.de which sold at Sedo.com for $5,200 EUR or about $7,131 USD around 2/1/2010. Last week I wrote about the iPad.net domain name auction that was taking place also at Sedo. iPad.net was sent to auction on a $7,500 USD bid and that auction ended 4/13 with the high bid of $8,300 USD with 8 bids and bidder number 1 winning the auction.
The iPad.net domain name has not been transferred yet, meaning this is not an official "sale" yet, so I will keep an eye on it.
The iPad.de domain name was a sale and guess what…. it is at Sedo auction again! This time around, the price has gone up to nearly double to what it sold for in February and the auction currently has 2 bids with the reserve met. Bidding is up to $10,100 EUR at time of posting, which is $13,751 USD at today’s conversion rate. iPad.de auction ends 4/19 about 9:19 AM PST and you can view the auction here.
According to iPadDomains.com, some other iPad related domain name sales include:
iPadWorkout.com $3,501
iPadPorn.com $1,500
iPadXXX.com $1,301
iPadThemes.com $131
iPadSock.com $2,000
iPadCase.com $2,050
iPadInsurance.com $1,500
Clearly all these domain name hold a pretty high risk for trademark violation with Apple but it is interesting to see how much these domain names are selling for and the amount of risk people are willing to take. Sadly, many people are not aware of trademark violations with domain names. From the research I have done, Apple Inc. does not own a single iPad related domain name.
Duane
Apple, if they are smart!
They will let people start developing the names and let them do all the marketing and dollar spending. Once the owners start bringing in traffic and business, thats when you will see the UDRP’s rolling in. Apple is known for going after trademark infringing scumbags.
The names are great for business and building out apps, but the risk of being brought to court with a 100 thousand dollar fine is not worth it.
They can be sure they will lose these names. Maybe not in a month,maybe not in a year, but in the long run they will eventually have to give the names up. All the work and money gone. That will suck big time.
Gazzip
Like passing a hot potato, the one stuck holding it will probably get burned
I saw ipad.us on pools homepage in Febuary, it was pending delete, no idea how much it went for or which auction house grabbed it.
Robert Haastrup-Timmi
There are literally thousands of iphone, ipod and now ipad related domain names out there. Is Apple going to sue every single one of them, or is it going to pick and choose?
The argument here dosen’t quite make sense. If there really are UDPR issues, then registrars should simply block the registration of any domain name with ipad, ipod or iphone in it. That is very easy to do technically.
Jamie Zoch
@Robert,
Apple seemed to pick and choose with MacBookPro.com which they went after not all that long ago. I think they would go after the best of the best. I agree that registrars could block certain terms but really.. domain registrars are not a court system, so I can see why they do not want to police it. Godaddy prevent searchers from including GoDaddy in domain searches but that is their own mark and a way they use to help prevent others from registering them.
Dietmar
You wrote “Clearly all these domain name hold
a pretty high risk for trademark violation
with Apple”. I think that is wrong, cause all
these domains ARE violating their trademark!
A trademark is a trademark is a trademark.
Registering a trademark (you do not own) as a
domain is like squatting an empty property in
the neighborhood and building a warehouse.
Ahoi!
Dietmar
Babyfacemagee
Apple tends not to go after domains unless the domain is harming Apple. In the case of the owner of Macbookpro.com he was intentionally directing traffic from that domain to a competitor to Apple. Obviously, that pissed Apple off. On the other hand look at ipadstore.com and iphonestore.com
Iphonestore.com probably makes a pretty penny for its owners and has been operating for years. Ipodstore.com has also been a parked page for years and i’m sure makes some cash for the owner. While Apple could come after someone using a domain name with a trademarked work on it they rarely do so unless there is a reason for them to.