Tag Archives: legal

Thu 16th July 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Goldman Sachs Drops Claim for GoldmanSachs666.com - Back in April we reported on the case of GoldmanSachs666.com If you recall  Goldman Sachs (GS) sent an Cease and Desist letter,  demanding that blogger Mike Morgan take down his gripe site GoldmanSachs666.com, saying that the site violated Goldman’s intellectual property rights and that the domain constituted trademark infringement. The “666″ in the domain’s refers to address of Goldman’s headquarters in New York. Instead of waiting for GS’s UDRP to arrive in the mail, Mr. Morgan, filed ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom Talks about Domainers - Beckstrom gives initial comments about domainers. In an article about new top level domains and trademarks in today’s Financial Times, ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom is quoted saying: “You can look at domainers in many ways. Some see them as cybersquatters, some look at them as entrepreneurs. I think there is a rich and healthy debate to be had.” Most domainers will view this as a positive statement. I e-mailed Beckstrom to make sure he was quoted in context and get ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Medical Clinic Sues Ex-Employee Over Domain Names - Clinic says former employee left with domain names. A medical clinic in Illinois is suing a former employee over domain names he kept in his name after terminating employment. According to a post on ChicagoNow.com, the employee registered four domain names (including one very similar to the clinic’s name) with company funds back in 2002. He left the clinic in 2004, but the domain names remained in his name after he left. The clinic just found out about it, and ... read more ...
Wed 15th July 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Minnesota Attorney General Sues National Arbitration Forum - Attorney general alleges deceptive practices in credit card disputes. The Minnesota Attorney General has filed a lawsuit against National Arbitration Forum, one of the largest domain name dispute providers under UDRP. The lawsuit does not pertain to domain arbitration, but instead to credit and collection disputes. The Attorney General alleges “that [National Arbitration Forum] misrepresented its independence and hid from consumers and the public its extensive ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Dunkin’ Donuts Goes Dunkin’ for UAE Domains - Donuts and ice cream are big business in United Arab Emirates. Dunkin’ Brands, through two intellectual property holding companies, has filed for arbitration to get United Arab Emirates .ae domain names related to two of its brands. The two separate cases were filed with World Intellectual Property Organization. In the first case, the company filed for two domains related to Dunkin’ Donuts: dunkin-donuts.ae and dunkindonuts.ae. The second case is for Baskin ... read more ...
Tue 14th July 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New York Times: Brokering Peace in a Domain Name World - New York Times article covers this week’s new TLD discussion in New York. I don’t typically write about mainstream news articles about domain names. When I do, it’s usually because the articles are inaccurate. But today on the New York Times’ Bits blog, author Saul Hansell wrote a well balanced description of the current battle between trademark holders and domainers titled “Brokering Peace Between Brand Owners and Domainers“. In the post, Hansell describes ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN’s Missing Picture: The Domain Registrant - The main source of funding for Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) doesn’t get the attention it deserves. In my open letter to new ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom, I made made a key point with regards to domain registrants: “Remember that domain owners ultimately fund your organization. Registries and registrars merely funnel domain owners’ money to ICANN.” It’s a fairly simple idea, but here’s a flow chart. The orange line are registration ... read more ...
Mon 13th July 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
An Arbitrator’s View of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking - How a UDRP panellist approaches the issues of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking and abuse of process. by The Hon Neil Brown QC [Editor’s note: in this exclusive guest article, The Hon. Neil Brown explains how he approaches the question of reverse domain name hijacking in UDRP decisions. Brown is an arbitrator and has heard dozens of cases at National Arbitration Forum and WIPO. He recently wrote a detailed finding of RDNH in a case for Shoeland.com. You can read ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
A Domain Lawyer’s View of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking - Domain attorney Karen Bernstein discussses (lack of) reverse domain name hijacking findings. Earlier today Domain Name Wire published a guest article by The Hon. Neil Brown, a domain arbitrator, about how he approaches reverse domain name hijacking (RDNH) decisions. Last week I caught up with New York domain attorney Karen Bernstein to discuss RDNH. Bernstein has reason to be frustrated about domain disputes and the lack of RDNH decisions. She was the respondent’s ... read more ...
Sat 11th July 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Rosetta Stone Sues Google For Trade Mark Infringement - In a seeming unending daily lawsuit filed against search engines for allowing advertisers to place PPC using others trademark terms, Rosetta Stone filed suit against Google yesterday in the Federal Court for the Eastern District of Virgina. The suit is typical of several others recently filed against Google, click here, here, and here and seek damages based on Google allowing advertisers, including competitors to Rosetta Stone from using Rosetta Stone trademarks in their PPC ads. The lawsuit cites ... read more ...
Fri 10th July 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Heineken Wants Heineken.tel Domain Name - Brewer files complaint with World Intellectual Property Association. Heineken Espana, SA, has filed for arbitration at World Intellectual Property Organization to get the domain name Heineken.tel. .Tel is a new domain name designed to be a business card on the web. Because .tel domain names can’t be developed as traditional web sites, I’ve wondered how an arbitrator would decide that a .tel domain was registered and used in bad faith. In this case, the owner ... read more ...
Thu 9th July 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Another Day, Another Suit: Yahoo Sued For Trademark Infringement In E-Mail Advertising - Mary Kay cosmetics filed suit yesterday against Yahoo for trademark infringement, for allegedly inserting links to unauthorized retailers, in personal email messages that Mary Kay sellers send to their consumers. “Emails that advertise Mary Kay products are hijacked and manipulated by Yahoo and provide an unfair advantage for the unauthorized re-sellers and other competitors,” the company alleges in its lawsuit, filed Tuesday in federal district court in for the Northern District which is Dallas ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Lawyer Suggests Alternative to Rapid Domain Suspension Scheme - Paul Keating suggests fixing UDRP, not introducing an alternative domain dispute mechanism. There were a number of thoughtful comments submitted to ICANN regarding the Implementation Recommendation Team’s (IRT) final report. But attorney Paul Keating went a step further, suggesting a way to modify UDRP domain arbitration rather than introduce a dual solution. Keating submitted a 20 page response to IRT’s proposal. The first several pages point out the numerous ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Comcast Starts Typosquatting Domain Names - IMHO, such “typosquatting”/”DNS help” these ISPs perform is “browser hijacking” (using my standard method of “definition based on actions”). A combination of my problems jover the years with Comcast’s DNS servers (including totally unresponsive DNS servers and the resolutions of domain names only after the second or third request — and using a third-party DNS server violates Comcast’s TOS, the last time I checked) — combined with the fact that Comcast regularly ... read more ...
Tue 7th July 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sun Microsystems Awarded Patent for Detecting Spoofed Domain Names - Sun awarded patent to detect spoofed domains and send web users to intended domain name. Sun Microsystems (NASDAQ: JAVA) has been awarded U.S. patent 7,559,085 for “Detection for deceptively similar domain names”. The patent was filed in 2004 and awarded today. The system includes a number of methods for detecting that someone is accessing a spoofed domain name and redirecting them to the correct domain name. For example, a web user may click on an email containing ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Oakland Raiders Take Fight Off Field for Domain Name - Football team trying to get OaklandRaiders.com domain name. National Football League franchise Oakland Raiders have filed for arbitration to get the domain name OaklandRaiders.com. The case was filed at World Intellectual Property Organization against a registrant who is using whois privacy to protect his information. The domain name is parked and shows ads for Oakland Raiders tickets and merchandise. The Raiders’ official web site is Raiders.com. The whois history ... read more ...
Mon 6th July 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Feedback on Implementation Recommendation Team Final Report - Here’s the feedback I just submitted to ICANN regarding the IRT Final Report. The deadline to submit comments to ICANN for the Implementation Response Team’s recommendations, including introducing a new rapid suspension scheme for domain names, is today. To submit a comment, send an email to: irt-final-report@icann.org. You can see current feedback here. Below is an exact copy of what I submitted to ICANN… The Implementation Recommendation Team (IRT) has put ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sedo Employee Running for Nominet Board - Nora Nanayakkara gunning for Non Executive Director position at Nominet. Sedo Business Development Director Nora Nanayakkara is running for election to Nominet’s board as a non executive director. Nominet runs the registry for .uk domain names, the country code for United Kingdom. Elections close Thursday, July 8. Nominet members and Tag Holders can vote in the election. Members pay an initiation fee and annual fees. So-called Tag Holders are members who ... read more ...
Fri 3rd July 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Google.com Sued Again But This Time Its Not Just Over PPC: Organic Search Removal - For the fifth time since May, Google has been sued for trademark infringement on AdWords. This lawsuit, brought by computer software company Ascentive, in the federal district court in the eastern district of Pennsylvania, alleges that Google wrongly allowed other companies to use Ascentive’s trademarks to trigger pay-per-click search ads. Nothing new there,  but the suit does on to allege that Google wrongly removed the company from the organic results listing of Google. Ascentive alleges that ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
TheJayLenoShow.com Goes To a Rightful Owner - It seems like a no-brainier to me, but I have seen at least 10 stories in the mainstream media about this today and no one reported it on domaining.com, so I’ll bite. TheJayLenoShow.com was ordered transferred to Mr. Leno in a WIPO action today. The domain was originally registered by Guadalupe Zambrano of Texas, back  in 2004, while Mr.Leno was firmly entrenched as the host of “The Tonight Show” and years before anyone knew (including Jay Leno)  that there would ever be a Jay Leno Show. Still,  ... read more ...
Thu 2nd July 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Where Will It End: Now TradeMark Holders Are Suing Craigslist.Org For Free Posted Ads - Trademark holders in a seemingly unending quest to expand their online rights, have now filed suit against Craigslist for trademark infringement based on ads posted by users. The lawsuit was brought by Texas real estate company First Call Properties, (yes Texas again) which alleges that it began advertising on Craigslist’s in March and that a competing company,  AAA Apartment Locating (AAA),  began posting Craigslist ads that use the phrases “first call,” “call first,” and “call us ... read more ...
Wed 1st July 2009
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Using Tweet in Your Domain Name Could Spell Trouble - Is ‘Tweet’ fair game? In May the domain name Tweet.me sold for $11,505 at Sedo. At the time, I wrote: I’m a bit concerned about all of the services popping up that use variants of Twitter and Tweet in their names: could Twitter ever come after them for trademark infringement? Some developers referred me to Twitter’s apparent company line on this issue: There are certainly many applications out there that include “Twitter” as part of their name, but we ... read more ...
Tue 30th June 2009
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Maybe Crime DOES Pay: ThePirateBay.Org Sells For $7.8 Million - We grew up being told by our parents that crime doesn’t pay, yet after  today’s report, sometimes it does. ThePiratebay.org, a huge file sharing site, reportedly sold today to a Internet gaming software company for $7.8 Million dollars. Swedish software company Global Gaming Factory X (GGF) has signed a deal to acquire The Pirate Bay for 60 million Swedish Kronor ($7.8 million), including $3.9 million in cash. GGF, which operates software for a range of Internet cafes and gaming venues, said ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Success Bank Unsuccessful in Domain Dispute - Bank tries to get domain registered years before it gets trademark. Success Bank, an Iowa bank, should stick to the banking business. The company failed at arbitration to get the domain name SuccessBank.com from its owner, who registered the domain name in 2003. The bank changed its name to Success Bank only in 2007, at which point it filed a trademark for the term. The trademark was granted in 2008. Success Bank uses the inferior domain SuccessBank.Net. If you ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Jay Westerdal Launches Counterclaims Against Thought Convergence - Westerdal files counterclaims against Thought Convergence in legal battle. Name Intelligence founder Jay Westerdal has filed a counterclaim (pdf) against Thought Convergence, Inc. (TCI) in a legal battle over TCI’s acquisition of his company. In the counterclaim document filed with the California Central District Court, Westerdal claims there were “Myriad of deliberate misrepresentations made by TCI during the negotiation process and execution of the agreement.” ... read more ...