Ask HN: Startup with same name as mine, what should I do?

3 points

16 years ago

A couple of years ago a friend and I developed a product which we never really pursued that hard as we went off and did other things. The website still exists and runs, but we don't have any users, do any marketing etc. I don't know if we will ever go back and pursue it, but I wouldn't want to close that door either.

At the time we could only get the .net of the domain we wanted. The .com was being used in a completely different field. Last year it came up in a domain auction but the bidding went higher than I was willing to pay so I missed out.

Now someone is getting ready to launch a new website on the .com doing exactly the same thing as what our system does.

My question is can or should I do anything about it, do I have any rights with prior use of the name etc (product name is same as domain etc)?

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