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Written by Paul D. Race for Family Garden Trains^TM and Garden Train Store^TM

From the moment we started publishing free information to help begineers in the hobby, businesses have figured out ways to make a profit by misappropriating our "intellectual property . . . " The "web guru's" unethical (and unjustifiably rude) behavior should have cost him his job. Instead, after one telephone conversation, the comany is lining up legal resources to cover for the guy. If nothing else, this tells me everything I need to know about dealing with that company ever again.

Avoid Imitations: There is Only One Garden Train StoreTM I guess the "good news" is that FamilyGardenTrains.com and our affiliate sites, such as "Garden-Train-Store.com" are still the most imitated Garden Railroading sites on the 'net. I have many friends in the Garden Railroad hobby and quite a few of them work for manufacturers and stores. Still, it would be a mistake to think that everyone in the business was "one big happy family." From the moment we started publishing free information to help begineers in the hobby, businesses have figured out ways to make a profit by misappropriating our "intellectual property," including trademarks, text, article outlines, look-and-feel, and so on. We've always started by contacting people privately, but sometimes we've had to publicly embarrass people to get them to stop stealing our stuff. In every case they say something like, "If you had a problem with this, why didn't you come to me privately?" Right. Here's another example, just in case you're interested in this sort of thing. Six weeks after one of our sites began trading under the name "Garden Train Store," a large hobby store chain registered the domain name gardentrainstore.com. Subsequently they are allowing Network Solutions, their registration company, to use that name (which includes our trademark) for profit, in violation of federal law. But the store has something like 200X my budget, there's really not much I can do but gripe and warn our readers that the REAL Garden Train StoreTM is still in business. Here's the timeline: February, 2005, replying to user requests for information on available products, we started a garden railroading "buyer's guide" page, called Garden Train StoreTM. We contacted several prominent garden train store suppliers, asking them if they would like us to link to products on their web page. The owner of the business being discussed in this article told me to talk to their "web guru." The "web guru" acted like he had no interest in what I told him about the new site or in looking at the beta pages I had put up. I, quite mistakenly, assumed that would be the end of my dealings with that company, except perhaps as a customer (I have done business with them before). Late February, 2005, the Garden Train StoreTM page "beta site" debuted. March 11, the "Garden Train StoreTM" pages went live with several vendors. It immediately started attracting interest, "click-throughs," and orders. April 7, 2005, unbeknownst to me, the store "web guru" who acted like he had no interest in my my site or ideas nevertheless registered the domain name GardenTrainStore.com through Network Solutions. Registering the domain name equivalent of someone else's trade name is called "squatting." It was a common practice in the earlydays of the internet - someone would beat Coca Cola to the domain name "Coke.com" then try to charge them a million dollars for the right to register their own trade mark. Today, there is a system for handling these issues, but it costs over 2 grand to enter a claim, so most small businesses (like us) just have to bite the bullet. Still, squatting is considered unethical among the legitimate internet community, so businesses that worry about their image stay away from the practice. I didn't, frankly expect this behavior from a company I had done business with, whose founder I had met at train shows, and so on. I didn't discover that the domain name gardentrainstore.com had been registered until I tried shortly aftwards to register it myself. (Nowadays, I register any domain names I plan to use before I use them, but I was still ignorant and trusting at the time.) Fall, 2005 - Spring, 2006, I contacted the store by e-mail a few times and was ignored. I eventually registered the name garden-train-store.com, and consoled myself that anyone who actually typed in gardentrainstore.com would just get a "page not found message" anyway. (Unfortunately that is no longer true.) December, 2006 I contacted the store by e-mail again and was given only a short reply asking me to "prove" my ownership of the trade mark. January, 2007, I e-mailed a "long version" of the chronology above, providing enough documentation to prove that A: I had the name "Garden Train Store" first and B: I was using it in interstate trade BEFORE they registered the domain name version of it. There was no reply. Sometime in late January or early February, 2007, the store allowed their domain name registrar (Network Solutions) to "park" the name so the store could start earning revenue from clicks on Google ads on the page. This is, technically, use of another entity's trademark in interstate trade, a far more serious trademark violation than "domain name squatting." Store managment may have been unaware this was happening but the "web guru" must have known, since Network Solutions can't use a domain name this way without permission from the domain name "contact person," in this case, the "web guru." February 19, 2007, I sent Network Solutions' trademark violation people evidence that their use of this page name was a trademark violation. They replied that it wasn't their problem and that only the store's internet contact could resolve the problem. March 21, 2007, I placed a long distance telephone call to the number that Network Solutions has listed as the contact number for the business in question. The site's "web guru" answered the phone. At first, he pretended not to know anything about what I was talking about; later in the conversation he admitted that he was aware from the start of what was going on. Then he said there wasn't anything he or his company could do about it. I told him that I had already talked to Network Solutions, and they said to talk to him. Finally he said, "We own that name and you can't have it." He told me that if I was convinced that they were breaking the law, I should "Call the police." He then hung up on me. A few minutes later, I called another number at the store and asked to talk to the store manager (which I admit I should have done from the beginning, but I had been hoping to salvage a relationship with these people). The store manager was "unavailable." Later that day, I got a message from the store's general manager telling me to stop harrassing his people and to bring my concerns to his lawyer. Note that I have only ever had one telephone conversation with anyone in the company, so I'm not convinced that qualifies as harrassment. Later the same day I got a call from the store's lawyer. I explained what was going on (something his client hadn't done), and he said he would get back to me the next day. March 26, I have yet to hear back from anyone. How wierd is this? The "web guru's" unethical (and unjustifiably rude) behavior should have cost him his job. Instead, after one telephone conversation, the comany is lining up legal resources to cover for the guy. If nothing else, this tells me everything I need to know about dealing with that company ever again. You may be wondering why I spell out the name "Network Solutions" but not the name of the hobby store chain. Well, Network Solutions' own name appears under on the page that is currently violating my trademark most directly (gardentrainstore.com), so that's a no-brainer. But the hobby shop, which has something like 2000 times my resources has already called in a legal team because I made one phone call to the person responsible for this mess; what do you think they would do to me if I spelled out their name here? Race's Second Law Rises Again Once again, I am reminded of my "Second Law:"* The superior never imitates the inferior. In other words, if my ideas, brand names, article content and so on weren't better than what any of these folks can come up with, they wouldn't be stealing them right, left, forwards, and backwards. I just wish we could avoid all of the "kicking and screaming" when they get caught. In the meantime, please remember that "www.garden-train-store.com" (hyphens) is the "buyer's guide" page maintained by Family Garden TrainsTM, and that "www.gardentrainstore.com" is a "parked" domain name being used illegally to generate income for a company whose behavior in this matter still astonishes me. Back to trains. We will have some GREAT announcements this year, as we're expanding in several directions due to new interests in various parts of the hobbies. And if there's something related to garden railroading or big trains that we haven't dealt with that is important to you, please, contact us and we'll try to get it in the queue if it isn't there already. Return to the Blog-Like Content Menu * My "First Law" is that there is no such thing as a twenty-minute home repair, but that's another story. To read more, or to look at recommended Garden Railroading and Display Railroad products, you may click on the index pages below.