axl and I are correct here.
You absolutely 100% do not have to own a registered trademark. If you register a domain similiar to someone else’s…depending how similar and offer to sell it to them, that’s a great way to prove you registered the name in bad faith. It depends how similar it is, how generic the name is, how you phrased the offer, etc.
It’s different if you really did register it before they did, though…that wasn’t made clear in the original post.
Also, a common thing is when you register a domain that’s a typo of another company’s and they approach you, you should not offer to sell it to them right upfront. That is how so many people get nailed registering a domain in bad faith.
I think we pretty much agree here. An established business being approached by someone who has registered a similar name might be able to claim the domain through legal actions. But there are a lot of maybe and but’s….But thats a long discussion and ‘bad faith’ is one of the primary elements
That being said, we registered the domain 6-8 months ago. And browsing through our unused domains I stumbled upon this new pokersite. Therefore we offered the domain name to them, and also pointed out that the domain was purchased before they launched their site. We also pointed out that we would begin the development of the site december 1st. (a few pages has been up for months). Our domain is quite safe