Tag Archives: legal

Tue 13th January 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Company creates Magical Mystery claims, loses UDRP - Motive behind creating ad agency website and trademark claims are questioned. San Francisco company Hippie Tours LLC has lost a UDRP against the domain name HippieBus.com. It made a number of Magical Mystery claims in its UDRP. John Berryhill represented domain name owner Mansour Elseify in the case. On the surface, this case appeared to be one where a clueless complainant went after a domain name registered many years before the complainant started its business. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
$55k Stolen domain name CIN.com returned around UDRP - Company paid $55,000 for domain name before it was stolen. Corporação Industrial do Norte, S.A (CIN) has recovered the domain name CIN.com, a domain name it says was stolen from it, through a UDRP. The company acquired CIN.com for $55,000 last summer. It alleges the domain name was then stolen and transferred to domain name registrar eName. (eName has apparently become a favorite registrar for domain name thieves. I see lots of allegedly stolen domain names ending ... read more ...
Mon 12th January 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
eBay takes down over 1,000 domain names with a singular UDRP - eBay wins a massive UDRP case. eBay has successfully taken down over 1,000 domain names containing its trademark, many of which were set up as commerce sites. The online auction company filed a UDRP against the owner of 1,153 .com and .net domain names. All of the domain names contained “ebay” followed by a series of numbers, such as ebay962.com, ebay623.net and ebay389.com. The domain names were protected by a privacy service. When the privacy was removed, the ... read more ...
Fri 9th January 2015
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Domain Holder Who Loses UDRP, Files Federal Court Case Over DirectorsChoice.com - Back in late December we wrote about the domain name DirectorsChoice.com which was lost in our opinion in a very bad UDRP decision. Today the domain holder, Russ Smith, pro se, filed a federal lawsuit in the United States District Court For The District Of New Jersey pursuant to Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (“ACPA”) 15 U.S.C. § 1114 (2)(D) (iv) and(v) to obtain a declaration of lawful use of the domain name and obtain a declaration that the Defendant made materially false statements ... read more ...
Wed 31st December 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
2014 in Review: Domain Theft and Phishing - A lot of people went phishing for domain names in 2014. This is the third in a five part series covering the top stories in the domain name industry in 2014. You can also listen to the companion podcast covering these five themes of 2014. It’s a lot easier to steal a million dollar domain name from most domain name registrars than it is to steal a million bucks from the bank. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that domain theft continued to be a problem in 2014. ... read more ...
Tue 30th December 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Just Bulbs takes a 3rd gash during JustBulbs.com - After losing two UDRPs, light bulb store files federal lawsuit. If at first you don’t succeed… New York City light bulb store Just Bulbs has filed a federal lawsuit (pdf) against the owner of the JustBulbs.com domain name, marking its third attempt to get the domain name through an arbitration or legal filing. The company filed and lost a UDRP against domain name owner Greg Ricks in 2003. It then filed a case in 2013 that it also lost. Now it’s turning to the ... read more ...
Mon 29th December 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Yes Max Hardcore Will Be Bidding On MaxHardcore.com: “I’m Gonna Take It Back” - The porn star and producer Max Hardcore told XBIZ.com that he would be be bidding on the upcoming expired domain name auction of MaxHardcore.com. Over the weekend we wrote that the domain name MaxHardcore.com was in pending delete/renewal status and already had multiple backorders at Namejet.com The domain name is presently owned by the Department of Justice. XBIZ.com spoke to Max Hardcore over the weekend after our story ran and he confirmed that he would be a bidder on the domain if it went to ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Interesting motive for a city changing the domain name - City cites credibility for switching from .org to .gov. The Town of West Hartford recently changed its domain name from a .org to a .gov, and I found its rationale for doing so rather interesting. Here’s a news brief from West Hartford News: This month, the Town of West Hartford changed its domain name from westhartford.org to westhartfordct.gov. The .gov domain offers a higher level of scrutiny that only federal, state and local governments are allowed to use. ... read more ...
Wed 24th December 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Survey Of Brand Strategies in a New gTLD Era Published By Largest Law Firm In France - Fidal, the largest lawfirm in France,  put out the results of a very detailed survey on new gtlds and how brands are using them. They conducted a survey that delved into a lot of topics that brands face when dealing with the new namespace. I read the whole report and I think it is well worth your time to take a look at and bookmark to refer back to. From the report: A large majority of the surveyed companies (64.9%) say they are informed about the launch of several hundred new top-level domain ... read more ...
Tue 23rd December 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Md.Org Lawsuit Withdrawn: Domain Is Transferred - In April of 2013 Namejet.comm along with the Seller of the domain Privacy LLC, (Privacy), filed a lawsuit against several parties for non-payment of the winning bid. Ownership of the domain name MD.org transferred yesterday to Ari Goldberger, ESQwire.com PC Domain Attorney Trust Account I reached out to Namejet.com for comment who told me that “the lawsuit has been withdrawn and the parties are all satisfied with the outcome.” I reached out to the other parties involved and didn’t get any ... read more ...
Mon 22nd December 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Aeropostale Wins 1st Uniform Rapid Suspension Appeal On Aeropostale.Uno - The clothing company Aeropostale has won what we believe is the first appeal of a Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) proceeding. Back in April a URS examiner  Alan L. Limbury,denied the Complaint of  Aeropostale Procurement Company on the domain name aeropostale.uno finding that “Complainant here submitted with its complaint copies of the certificates of registration of seven United States AEROPOSTALE trademarks, four of which are in the name R. H. Macy Co., Inc., two of which are in the name Aeropostale ... read more ...
Fri 19th December 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
WIPO row denies UDRP on WUP.com - Complainant probably didn’t exist when domain name was registered. A World Intellectual Property Organization panel has denied a UDRP attempt on the three letter domain name WUP.com. The complaint was filed by Wengenroth Partner, an German SEO and online marketing firm. It appears the company didn’t even exist when the respondent register the domain name in 2008. The single member panel found that the complainant did not prove a lack of rights or legitimate interests, ... read more ...
Thu 18th December 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Union Bank loses cases opposite dispute websites - Former customer registered ten domain names to air grievances about the bank. Union Bank has lost three domain name arbitration cases involving an upset former customer. The bank filed three separate actions covering UnionBank.me, unionbancal.co, unionbank.cc, union-bank.co, mufgunionbankna.com, unionbancalcorp.com, unionbancal.net, unionbancal.org, unionbankna.com and unionbanks.net. The domain names were all registered by William Bookout. At one point, his company ... read more ...
Wed 17th December 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Godaddy Sued For $50 Million By Russian Millionaire Konstantin Malofeev - According to Courthousenews.com, GoDaddy.com has been sued for $50 million by A Russian millionaire claiming Godaddy defamed him by hosting a number of websites that accuse him of fraud. Konstantin Malofeev sued GoDaddy, Domains by Proxy and John Doe – the anonymous operator of the websites – on Dec. 14 Malofeev claims he is a businessman, politician, and chairman of the board of directors of Marshall Capital Group, one of Russia’s largest equity investment groups. He claims that a number of ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN hacked, section record complement among victims - Hackers phished ICANN employees to gain access to systems. ICANN revealed today that its systems were compromised by a phishing attack. The attack involved emails designed to look like they came from ICANN’s own domain name being sent to members of its staff. Email credentials of several ICANN staff members were obtained. It appears the biggest system to be accessed as a result of the security breach was The Centralized Zone Data System (CZDS). This system is a ... read more ...
Tue 16th December 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
RiskIQ.com Files Suit Again Risk.io For Federal Trademark Infringement - RiskIQ.com. sued Risk.IO, for trademark infringement and unfair competition based upon Risk IO’s having improperly and willfully used the names, yesterday in the United States District Court in the Northern District Of California San Francisco Division for trademark infringement asking for disgorgement of profits, for civil penalties, and for preliminary and permanent injunctions enjoining Risk IO, its officers, agents, servants, employees, and all other persons in active concert with it, from ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
See all 152 heading apps filed by a Trademark King (at a cost of $50k!) - Guy spends nearly $50,000 on application fees to try to trademark terms such as Google.com, NCAA Final Four and Elvis.com. I’ve written a couple times about Trademark King Inc, an Indiana business that filed a lot of trademark applications matching mostly famous names and common terms. The company has filed 152 applications, according to a search on Trademark247. Most were filed around Thanksgiving, and many of them exactly match a celebrity name or famous brand ... read more ...
Mon 15th December 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Best feign name used in a domain name scam. Ever. - I don’t think think this scammer meant to be so funny. By now, pretty much everyone has seen the Fake Trademark Protection domain name scam, sometimes called the Asian Domain Scam. Here’s how it works: A scammer, typically pretending to be an Asian domain name registrar, sends an email to the owner of a domain name and says that someone else is trying to register domain names using the same brand. The scammer says they’re reaching out as a courtesy. If the recipient ... read more ...
Mon 8th December 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Nissan Files 12 Separate URS Cases On New gTLD’s Spending Over 50% The Cost Of What A Block Would Have Cost - Nissan which sold Z.com for $6.8 million dollars a few weeks ago filed 12 separate Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) cases with the National Arbitration Forum over the weekend. For about 3K per brand, or $9K Nissan could have bought a block with Donuts which would have blocked any of new gTLD domain name in these three brands from being registered over all Donuts extensions, which I believe all of these were. Nissan also won a URS on the domain name Nissan.repair today making it a total of 13 URS cases At ... read more ...
Fri 5th December 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Porn site user sues cybersquatters - Company goes after alleged cybersquatters of its adult site brands. The company behind PornHub.com, RedTube.com and YouPorn.com has filed multiple lawsuits in U.S. District court against the owners of at least ten domain names it alleges are cybersquatting on its brands. The lawsuit was filed by Licensing IP International S.à.r.l., which is commonly known as MindGeek. Targeted in the suits are typos, country codes and other domains that contain its brands: PoernHub.com, ... read more ...
Thu 4th December 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Companies don’t wish we to use Whois privacy, though they use it themselves - Brands owners benefit from whois privacy, even though they’d prefer their adversaries not be able to use it. There’s a common myth in intellectual property circles that, if it weren’t for whois privacy and proxy services, there would be a lot less bad stuff on the internet. I can bust a hole right in the myth. But instead, I’d like to point out something these companies don’t often admit: they are some of the biggest users of whois privacy. I was reminded ... read more ...
Wed 3rd December 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Exhibit 1: Why Whois corroboration for domain registrations is so stupid - Whois verification is just begging for phishers. A lot has been made about the new requirement this year for domain name registrars to verify certain aspects of Whois contact information provided by registrations. Over a million domain names have been suspended due to the failure by the owner to click a link in an email sent by the registrar for a domain name. But don’t click to quickly. It might be a phishing attempt. In fact, the way it’s set up, this verification ... read more ...
Mon 1st December 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
“Trademark King” wants Apple.com, YouTube.com, Target.com, Google.com, Elton John trademarks - Guy files trademarks matching names of celebrities, major brands and their domain names. A couple weeks ago I wrote about Trademark King, Inc. The Indiana company had filed a trademark on Trademarking.com, a domain name owned by domain investor Rick Schwartz. When I reached out to Douglas Lehocky, the person listed on the trademark applications, he told me it didn’t matter if someone else owned the domain name Trademarking.com. If he got the trademark first, he ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Lawsuit alleges 3 series domain names stolen - Lawsuit says three three-number domain names were stolen from an eNom account. A federal lawsuit alleges that the domain names 224.com, 605.com and 452.com have been stolen. Ian Andrew of Traffic Names, Ltd filed an in rem action (pdf) against the domain names in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Traffic Names alleges that it is the rightful owner of the domain names and that they were stolen from its eNom domain name registrar account. According ... read more ...
Fri 28th November 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
TrendyHair.es owners guilty of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking - WIPO panel finds GIGS United S.L. guilty of reverse domain name hijacking. GIGS United S.L., the Barcelona company that owns TrendyHair.es, has been found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking over the domain name TrendyHair.com. The case was filed against SIE MANTIC, but it’s a little unclear as to who actually owns the domain and who responded to the case. According to the complainant, it negotiated to buy the domain name from the respondent for 2,500 EUR on ... read more ...