I know.  I know.  There are plenty of questions going through your head right now upon reading the title of this… How could this possibly happen?  Why do they want some Irish/Polish mixed name?  Don’t they have enough to do with the Olympics this year?  How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie pop?

Well, I’m as bewildered as you are.  Let me start at the beginning since it was only this morning and I am pretty sure I can re-count it.

I woke up to my blackberry going off next to me for an emergency email.  No one sends me emergency emails, with the exception of the Chinese government, so naturally I had a look see.  I skimmed it quickly and determined it could wait until morning because they did not say anything about me needing to wake up immediately and get dressed.

Dear principal,

We are a domain name registration service company in asia,which mainly deal with international company’s in Asia.We have something important need to confirm with you company.On the July 01th, 2008, we received an application formally.One company named “Makerc International Holdings Ltd” wanted to register following domain names:
patricktulskie.asia
patricktulskie.cn
patricktulskie.com.cn
patricktulskie.hk
patricktulskie.info
patricktulskie.net
patricktulskie.net.cn
patricktulskie.org.cn
patricktulskie.tw
and Internet brand name:
Patricktulskie
through our body.
During our auditing procedure we find out that the alleged “Makerc International Holdings Ltd” has no trade mark, Intellectual property, nor patent even similar to that word. we found that the keywords and domain names applied for registration are as same as your company’s name and trademark. one point need you to confirm: whether this alleged “Makerc International Holdings Ltd” is your business partner or distributor in ASIA. if so, we will complete their registration. These days we are dealing with it.
If you are not in charge of this please transfer this email to appropriate dept.In order to deal with this issue better,please let someone who is responsible for trademark or domain name contact me as soon as possible.

Best Regards,

Carol
Auditing Department
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Hong Kong Office:
Tel: 00852 8122 6293 (Direct)
Tel: 00852 3059 3057 (Office)
Fax: 00852 3059 3080

Email: Carol@skasia.hk.cn
Web: http://www.skholdingscompanyltd.asia

Confidentiality Notice. This is a letter for confirmation. If the mentioned third party is your business partner or distributor in ASIA please DO NOT reply. We will automatically confirm application from your business partner after this audit procedure. we have to notify you, and our registration organization are not responsible for any dispute questions about trade mark, intellectual property nor patent after they succeed in registration. hope you can understand. thank you.

My initial thoughts were “Hot damn, I’m a principal now.”  Then I went to GoDaddy and bought PatrickTulskie.org and PatrickTulskie.net.  I sat back in my chair and thought to myself “Damn you’re slick aren’t you Patrick?  Yeah you are.”

At this point you probably think it’s unfair that I say the Chinese government was responsible for this but it’s more fun to blame them for it.  Besides, at a later point I was lead to believe that this Carol person was a representative for the Chinese government.  I did not yet realize what they were trying to do, so I replied with this:

Carol,

Thank you for notifying me of this. PatrickTulskie is my name and my business name. Please do not permit this to go through as it would inflict damage on my reputation, and business in addition to confusion for people who view those pages. I’ve had other companies attempt to register my name as domains in an attempt to do “domain squatting” and advertising under my name without my consent.

They are not my business partner nor are they my distributor in Asia. Furthermore, to my knowledge I am the only Patrick Tulskie in the entire world. Please do not permit this transaction. Thank you very much Carol.

Patrick Tulskie
http://www.PatrickTulskie.com

Almost immediately I got a response back that said:

Dear Patrick,

Thanks for your prompt reply.We are a government authorized domain registration organization,During the auditing process, we have found that Makerc International Holdings Ltd is not the owner of “patricktulskie”.We also do not know that company’s detail information,So we ask you to confirm the relationship between you and that company.

If you have no relationship with them. According to our working experience, there are two possibilities:1.Makerc International Holdings Ltd is a domain name investment company, they want to register these names before you and sell back to you to gain profits.2.Makerc International Holdings Ltd is consigned by your competitor to register, let your customers feel confusion.

You know domain name takes open registration, this is international domain name registration principle. So Makerc International Holdings Ltd has right to register it.I think you must know some cases about the domain names grabbed by the third party,we also won’t want to see things happen like this.

As the owner of “patricktulskie”,you will get the priority to register these domain names and keyword.If you think these domian names are important for your company.we can send you a dispute application form and help you to register these domains within dispute period.This is the only way to prevent domain name grab. But If you don’t think their application will affect your company, you can give up.Each company has their own idea,Hope you can give me your decision ASAP.so that we can handle the next step.

Best Regards

Carol

Ah!  So I see!  She’s from the government and she’s looking out for my best interest!  How sweet of her and the Chinese government to be looking out for my ass.  Well, at this point I just kinda want her to go away because it was my last work day of the week and I wanted to get some real work done, so I sent her this:

Hello Carol,

I have no relationship with that company. I have already registered PatrickTulskie.net and PatrickTulskie.org in addition to my flagship PatrickTulskie.com.

They can go ahead and buy whatever is left out there. I am not interested in them and I do not feel that they would be a threat to my business.

Thank you for the notification.
Patrick Tulskie
http://www.PatrickTulskie.com

…and I thought that would be sufficient enough to make her go away.  Alas, no I was wrong.  I didn’t realize she still needed to fill her quota for the month and she wasn’t going to let me go yet.

I’m tired now though and I believe I’ll have to continue the saga tomorrow.  I have more emails to/from her that I need to sift through and pick apart.  Check back soon for the continuation.