Tag Archives: legal

Thu 16th October 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
10 photos from ICANN 51 - A quick visual look at this week’s ICANN meeting in Los Angeles. It has been a busy, busy week in Los Angeles. I’ll have more thoughts on ICANN 51 later. For now, I have a collection of photos from in and around the event. Captions are below each photo. Entertainment during TLD Registry (“Dot Chinese Online” and “Dot Chinese Website”) and .Club event on Sunday at a popular Chinese restaurant. I also had a chance to hang out with TLD Registry when it was ... read more ...
Wed 15th October 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
WARNING: Stolen Domain Names Slash.com & County.com Are Being Shopped Around - We have received a report from Andrew Rosener of MediaOptions.com that at least two domain names, Slash.com County.com have been stolen from NetworkSolutions.com and are being shopped around for sale. In a email Andrew wrote: “I wanted to notify everyone that we have just discovered a domain theft at Network Solutions which I do not believe is an isolated incident.” “So far it involves two domains, slash.com county.com.” The domains are from different owners and stolen by the same thief.” County.com ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Do-Over: 2 TLD apps that mislaid in objections get another chance - .Cam and Amazon IDN domain name decisions will be reviewed. ICANN is giving two new top level domain name applications another look after embarrassing inconsistencies in string confusion objections. The board’s new TLD committee determined that decisions against Amazon.com’s .通販 application and Rightside’s .cam should be reviewed. I provide the background to this story in detail here. In the case of .cam, Verisign succeeded in a string confusion objection ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Grafitti artist Banksy final Banksy.com domain name - Agent files UDRP to get domain name. Famous grafitti artist Banksy has filed a cybersquatting complaint against the owner of Banksy.com. [Update: the filing may have been from an imposter.] The case was filed by Banksy Inc (C/O Pest Control Office Limited). Pest Control Office is essentially an agent and certification group for Banksy’s work. It is currently trying to get a U.S. trademark for Banksy. If you go to Banksy.com right now, you’ll find a site about ... read more ...
Tue 14th October 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
How is this not retreat domain name hijacking? - Domain was allegedly registered well before company started using name. National Arbitration Forum panelist Dennis A. Foster has turned in a UDRP decision in favor of the respondent for the domain name IAFT.com. The case was filed by International Academy of Film and Television (IAFT International LLC), and the case was dead on arrival — at least based on the facts presented in the case. IAFT claims to have started using IAFT in 2003, three years after the owner ... read more ...
Mon 13th October 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Which ICANN sessions domainers should attend - A quick look at relevant sessions at this week’s ICANN conference. ICANN 51 formally kicks off today in Los Angeles. There are a lot of domain name investors in attendance, so I created a quick guide to sessions that might be interesting to them. Even if you aren’t in L.A., ICANN has excellent online participation tools that make it almost easier to attend virtually than in person. Here are my picks. Monday October 13 Welcome Ceremony (8:30 to 10:00, all times ... read more ...
Sat 11th October 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Bob Olea: “Any Domain Seized, Not Owned By Defendant Will Be Returned” - Good news for anyone who had domain names seized by Verisign as part of an ongoing case who are not related to the defendant in that case. The court appointed receiver Bob Olea sent me an email yesterday to the effect that domain that were not owned by the defendant of the case will be returned to their owners. We wrote about around 5,000 domain names that we seized by Verisign related to a dispute under a sealed court order back on October 9th. Since then TechDirt.com wrote a story about the case, ... read more ...
Fri 10th October 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
$1.25 million domain name Photo.com strike with UDRP - Case filed with World Intellectual Property Organization against Photo.com. The domain name Photo.com has been hit with a UDRP filing at World Intellectual Property Organization. According to a 2010 story at TheDomains, Moniker brokered the sale of this domain name back then for $1.25 million. The complainant is Fotocom Société Anonyme. I’m having trouble due to the language barrier, but it’s possible that this group is associated with the domain name Foto.com. ... read more ...
Tue 7th October 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
The repository attention has the possess Domain Registry of America - Tricky renewal notices get people to renew subscriptions through a third party. Remember Domain Registry of America, the group that tricked* people into renewing domain names at exorbitant prices? This type of scam didn’t start with the domain name industry, and it doesn’t end there, either. Apparently newspapers and magazines across the country are grappling with more than just falling advertising revenues. They’re dealing with an outfit sending misleading ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Eco domain name applicant gets village status, .Gay and .Music don’t - .Eco applicant prevails with its own definition of the eco community; .gay and .music applicants don’t. Three more Community Priority Evaluation decisions for new top level domain names have been completed. .Eco applicant Big Room Inc has succeeded in getting community status by earning the minimum required 14 of 16 points. This means that applicants Donuts, Minds + Machines and Planet Dot Eco are no longer in the running for the domain name. dotgay llc failed with ... read more ...
Mon 6th October 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Marchex Files Federal Suit Over UDRP On Banco24horas.com and Banco24horas.net - Marchex Sales Inc, filed a Federal Lawsuit in the Eastern District of Virginia today over the domain names, banco24horas.com and banco24horas.net which were awarded in a UDRP to Tecnologia Bancaria S.A. of Brazil. The lawsuit is for Reverse Domain Hijacking and for Declaratory Relief Under the Lanham Act 15 USC 1114(2)(d)(iv)-(v) For Tortious Interference with a Contract. In addition Marchex is asking the court to block the transfer of the domains, for its attorney’s fees and costs and for statutory ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Planet Fitness guilty of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking - …as the company wastes money with a reactive approach to intellectual property management. Planet Fitness, a chain of over 800 fitness clubs in the United States, has been found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking for its attempt to get the domain name judgmentfree.com. This is despite the domain name owner not even responding to the dispute. Planet Fitness uses the slogan “Judgement Free Zone” for its gyms. I assume that means you won’t be judged for ... read more ...
Fri 3rd October 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
2 Texas DUI Lawyers Battle Over Trademarked Domains: DontBlow.com Vs. DoNotBlow.com - TexasLawyer.com reported on a dispute between Tyler Flood, a Houston DUI lawyer who filed a lawsuit against The Law Offices of Mark Hull, based in Austin for trademark infringement over a domain name. “Flood alleges that the Hull firm violated his trademark, DoNotBlow.com which he alleges he began using in 2006 but didn’t register with te USPTO until 2013 by using the “confusing and similar” website name, DontBlow.com, to sell legal services. The complaint alleges the Hull firm’s use of ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
$42,000 MySchool.com domain name survives UDRP - Complainant goes after domain name for a second time, and loses for the second time. Original Web Ventures has survived a UDRP that was filed against its MySchool.com domain name — a domain name it purchased last year for $42,000. The complainant, Joseph L. Carpenter, runs a site at MySchool411.com. He filed a UDRP against MySchool.com back in 2010 and lost that case. Now that the domain has changed hands, he took another crack at it. A three person National Arbitration ... read more ...
Thu 2nd October 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
As Many As 5K .Com’s Taken Away By Sealed Court Order By Verisign Including Some Of Mine - Overnight I received a notice that several domain names I owned were transferred by a sealed court from Verisign without notice and of course without the court order. The domain names just were transferred by Verisign to another domain and are now listed for sale at another marketplace. Another domainer sent me an identical notice he received overnight on domain names he owned. The Domain names are now all owned by COURT APPOINTED RECEIVER – ROBERT OLEA and have been moved to Uniregisty as the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Affiliate Summit sues hotel engagement company - Organizers say defendants are tricky conference attendees into booking hotel rooms. Many people in the domain name industry that go to January’s NamesCon conference will stick around Vegas for the Affiliate Summit conference, which starts January 18. If you are going to the show, beware: organizers of the conference say a company is misrepresenting itself to attendees in order to sell hotel bookings. In a lawsuit (pdf) filed in U.S. District Court on Tuesday, Affiliate ... read more ...
Tue 30th September 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Company pays $25k to solve lawsuit stemming from UDRP - Domain name owner that sued after losing UDRP settles for $25,000 (not including the domain). Companies that file long shot UDRPs with the hope of scoring a great domain name, take note. An Austin company has agreed to pay $25,000 to settle a lawsuit filed against it after it initiated a UDRP case. And the company won its UDRP. Austin Pain Associates filed a UDRP against AustinPain.com, a domain owned by HugeDomains. I was surprised that the complainant won, and believe ... read more ...
Fri 26th September 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
UDRP filed opposite Bids.com, and it competence be interesting - Dispute might be over business rather than cybersquatting. A UDRP was filed against the generic domain name Bids.com yesterday, and this domain has an interesting history that suggests the issue might be bigger than cybersquatting. The domain was previously owned by Bidz.com, a company that is selling off its assets through “a General Assignment for the benefit of creditors pursuant to California state law.” That’s kind of like a bankruptcy. Hilco Streambank ... read more ...
Thu 25th September 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Spamhaus wins Spamhaus.com in UDRP, though it won’t get a domain right away - Domain name is part of Ondova portfolio tied up in courts. A UDRP panel has awarded anti-spam group The Spamhaus Project the domain name Spamhaus.com, but the group won’t be able to use the domain any time soon. The domain name is registered to Ondova Limited Company and is part of a domain name portfolio that has been locked up in bankruptcy court for years. When the UDRP was filed, lawyers acting for United States Bankruptcy Trustee of Ondova Limited Company sent ... read more ...
Tue 23rd September 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Latest domain name fraud spoofs ICANN, worse than domain renovation scam - Scammer sends fake renewal notices with goal of getting your credit card information. ICANN may have shut down Domain Registry of America for now, but new scams pop up just about every day. Joseph Peterson sent one example to me today that I haven’t seen before. He received an email with the subject line “something.com EXPIRATION!”, in which something.com matched one of his domains. Although his domain doesn’t expire until next year, the email claims it expires ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sun City Casino Gambles On UDRP And Loses - A confusing set of circumstances, but panel rules it certainly isn’t cybersquatting. Sun International Limited, operator of hotels and casinos in Africa and Latin America, has lost a UDRP for SunBet.com. The company failed to prove that the respondent, Sun Ventures Development Limited, lacked rights or legitimate interests in the domain name and didn’t prove it was registered in bad faith. This is a case in which the panelists earned their keep; there’s a confusing ... read more ...
Thu 18th September 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Donuts wants to obvious Domain Protected Marks List - Registry files patent application for brand protection tool. Donuts wants to patent the Domain Protected Marks List (DPML), a service that helps brand owners prevent their trademarks from being registered across multiple top level domains. The company filed U.S. patent application 13/804919 (pdf) in March 2013 for “Domain Protected Marks List Based Techniques For Managing Domain Name Registrations”. The application was published today. DPML allows brand owners ... read more ...
Wed 17th September 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Should this UDRP complainant have cold the case? - The response made it clear it would not win its case. The group that owns the the French wine estate Chateau Ausone filed a UDRP against the owner of Ausone.com. On the face of it, I can understand why they filed the complaint. At the time they filed, visitors to Ausone.com saw a parked page that included links to wine. If they looked at the whois for Ausone.com, it didn’t indicate any connection to an “Ausone” brand”, other than the registrant being located ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
CoolMath.com files cybersquatting fit opposite leased domain name - Company wants control of CoolMathGames.com, which Vertical Axis might have leased to another party. If you’ve ever stumbled upon a site in the CoolMath.com network of websites, you probably thought you had taken a trip back to the 1990s. With black backgrounds and neon graphics, all that’s missing are spinning logos. But the network is big. Really big. Coolmath-Games.com alone had 677 million visits between June 2013 and June 2014. Now CoolMath.com, LLC is suing ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
WWE accepts a challenge, fights for WWE.org - Domain name owner makes preemptive defense against UDRP. A UDRP for WWE.org was just filed with National Arbitration Forum. You’ll see a curious message when you visit the domain name: Disclaimer: wwe.org (Western Women Entrepreneurs) is not associated with wwe.com (World Wrestling Entertainment) nor we have any intention to represent, sell or promote ANY wrestling goods. wwe.org is a solo organization represents Western Women Entrepreneurs. we hold no trademark ... read more ...