Tag Archives: legal

Tue 11th March 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New TLD heading notifications tip 20,000 - The Trademark Clearinghouse has sent over 20,000 notices to trademark holders based on domain registrations matching trademarks. The Trademark Clearinghouse has now issued 20,076 trademark notifications based on second level registrations in new TLDs. The notifications are sent to entities that have registered their marks with the Trademark Clearinghouse whenever someone registers an SLD that matches that mark. There are only 27,252 marks submitted to the Clearinghouse, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Fiskars is Stoppable, domain name row rules - Company loses dispute for Unstoppable.com domain name. Fiskars, a company you most likely know for its scissors, has a trademark on “Unstoppable”. But a Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) panel has ruled that its rights to the term are stoppable. The company filed a cybersquatting complaint under UDRP against the owner of Unstoppable.com. Fiskars lost its case (pdf) despite the domain name owner not responding. The panel ruled that Fiskars did ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Companies are unprotected to .exposed tip turn domain name - Trademark counsel should pay attention to the latest TLD to enter sunrise. A lot of people have focused on .sucks as an example of a top level domain “shakedown” in which companies will feel compelled to register domains for protective purposes. There’s a similar domain name entering sunrise today that hasn’t received much attention: .exposed. It can be used in much the same way that .sucks and .gripe can be used, so it’s worth paying attention to if you’re ... read more ...
Fri 7th March 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Warner Bros. gets Gauntlet.com domain name after filing UDRP - Entertainment company now controls Gauntlet.com domain name. Warner Bros. has filed a UDRP against the domain name Gauntlet.com, and it appears the domain name registrant handed the domain name over as a result. It’s not clear yet if a payment was involved, but I’ve reached out to the previous domain owner. Warner Bros. distributed the 1977 film The Gauntlet directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Eastwood and Sondra Locke. But its interest in the domain name ... read more ...
Wed 5th March 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
“Income Acceleration Mentor” files UDRP opposite JustBelieve.com - Company filed and dismissed two lawsuits against domain name before filing UDRP. Life is Now, Inc. has filed a UDRP against the domain name JustBelieve.com. The company promotes coaching by David Neagle, whose website describes him as “Master Income Acceleration Mentor for Entrepreneurs Corporate Professionals”. It has a registered trademark for “Just Believe” and claims first use in commerce of 2003. The domain name is owned by Greg Ricks, who has owned ... read more ...
Tue 4th March 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
See how John Berryhill schools a UDRP complainant - Berryhill brings it home in ican.com case. John Berryhill has successfully defended Digimedia’s domain name ican.com in a UDRP brought by Galaxy Rainbow Limited in Hong Kong. Berryhill pokes a number of holes in Galaxy Rainbow’s case, but really brings it home in the “registered in bad faith” section. For your reading enjoyment: …the Respondent registered the domain name in 1998 – ten years prior to the earliest evidence of a trademark registration presented ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New TLD registries need to forget about morning revenue - New top level domain registries need to scratch the sunrise line item off their PLs. I think many observers are surprised by the low number of trademark sunrise registrations in new top level domain names so far. Calzone, a calendar for new TLD rollouts, has put together some numbers and analysis on sunrise periods so far. The net-net is that sunrises so far have averaged between 100-200 registrations. That’s about 1% of how many sunrise registrations .co received ... read more ...
Fri 28th February 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN to Registrars: We’re operative on authorised issues with 2013 RAA - But not fast enough for some registrars that fear losing their accreditation. ICANN Vice President of Domain Name Services Cyrus Namazi has sent a letter (pdf) to domain name registrars regarding their concerns over legal implications of the 2013 Registrar Accreditation Agreement (RAA). In a nutshell, the letter says ICANN is still exploring resolution to conflicts with local laws. In the meantime, some accredited registrars’ ability to sell new top level domain ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Qwalify.com owners files UDRP opposite Qualify.com - Canadian company tries using UDRP to get “correct” spelling of its name. Qualify.com was registered more than 10 years before the company was founded. Qwalify, Inc., a company that services the job recruiter industry, has filed a UDRP (pdf) against the domain name Qualify.com. And yes, this case is as bad as it sounds. It’s rather comical, really. Qwalify claims to have started using its brand around 2010. To make the case that the domain name was registered ... read more ...
Thu 27th February 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Richard Branson turns to new collection to fight cybersquatting - Billionaire fights back after finding his name cybersquatted in new domain names. Billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson has turned to two new tools to combat cybersquatting in new top level domain names: The new Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) policy and Donuts’ “Domain Protected Marks List”. Branson filed a URS case with the National Arbitration Forum in an effort to get the registrations for RichardBranson.holdings and RichardBranson.ventures suspended. ... read more ...
Wed 26th February 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Mail combined to new TLD deathwatch, new offer for doing Name Collisions - .Mail may be shelved and group suggests new way to handle name collisions for new top level domain names. JAS Global Advisors has released a new report about name collisions for new top level domain names and has made a new set of recommendations. The report is available for comments. One of the key changes from the existing name collision plan: permanent reservation of the .mail top level domain name. JAS found that use of .mail in systems is prevalent and that it ... read more ...
Mon 24th February 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Facepets.com asks justice to get Facebook off the back - If I were them, I’d find another domain name and focus on the business rather than waste time with a lawsuit. Facepets.com, LLC, a company that wants to start a social network for pet owners, has filed a federal lawsuit (pdf) against Facebook in Nashville. The company is asking for Declaratory Judgment that its name doesn’t infringe on Facebook’s trademarks. This all started when Facepets.com filed a trademark application for its name, which caught the attention ... read more ...
Thu 20th February 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
SteelBuildings.com: an instance of what’s wrong with UDRP - Small business owner forced to defend his great product-defining domain name. Last month I was shocked to see a UDRP filed for SteelBuildings.com. I was even more surprised when I saw that the domain name seemed to be in use by a company that sells steel buildings. I reached out to the whois contact for the domain name, as well as the email address on the website, to ask for details on the complaint. Yesterday, a few weeks later, I received a phone call from John ... read more ...
Wed 19th February 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Verisign gets obvious for Recovery of a Failed Registry - Verisign adds to patent war chest. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted Verisign patent number 8,656,209 for “Recovery of a Failed Registry”. I wrote about the patent application in 2012. Verisign describes the system as one that “enables a registry recovery service to retrieve zone files from a target registry, archive the zone files, publish the zone files to a managed DNS server, reconcile ownership of the zone files, and publish the zone files ... read more ...
Tue 18th February 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Aeropostale files Uniform Rapid Suspension box for .clothing domain name - Clothing company is second company to take advantage of new policy to defend against cybersquatting. Clothing company Aeropostale (NYSE:ARO) has filed a Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) case against the domain name aeropostale.clothing. This is just the second case filed against a second level domain under a new top level domain using URS. URS is a faster and cheaper version of the UDRP. However, a win by the complainant results in only the suspension of the domain ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Insurance.pro preference acknowledges boundary on UDRP and trademarks - Facing legitimate questions over a trademark’s legitimacy, UDRP panel determines case is outside the scope of the policy. A couple weeks ago a National Arbitration Forum panel handed down a decision in a complaint brought over the domain name insurance.pro. On the surface it appeared to just be a case about a seemingly generic domain name. But there are a couple interesting things about this case, and it could end up being an interesting reference case for UDRPs ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Music new tip turn domain village objections fail - All community objections against .music and .band have failed. An International Chamber of Commerce panelist has denied Constantine Roussos’ community objections against competing applications for .music as well as applications for .band. The same panelist also denied an objection brought by International Federation of Arts Councils and Culture Agencies against another applicant. All of the .music objections have been decided in the applicants’ favor. Roussos ... read more ...
Thu 13th February 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
IBM wins initial new tip turn domain URS case - Panel hands down decision within one week. IBM has won the first ever Uniform Rapid Suspension case for new top level domain names. A National Arbitration Forum panelist ruled in the company’s favor in a dispute over IBM.guru and IBM.ventures. Both domain names will be suspended but not transferred to IBM. IBM can opt to register them when they expire or file a UDRP to get the domain names. IBM has belatedly signed up for Donuts’ Domains Protected Marks List, ... read more ...
Wed 12th February 2014
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
The .Com Firewall: Is A .Com Registration Better Protection From New gTLD’s Than Trademarks? - An interesting point of view on new gTLD’s, trademarks and .com registrants was published today by Cybrands.com Basically the author of the post is claiming that owning a .com can be better protection against potentially infringing new gTLD domain names than a trademark. He calls it the .com firewall: “In computing terms, firewall has many definitions.” In domaining terms, what I’m referring to is the practice of registering the .com version of a domain name which can effectively quash incentive ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN plays “make believe” with fibre difficulty examination process - ICANN pretends other inconsistencies don’t exist so it can resolve two of the most embarrassing ones. Yesterday ICANN posted a proposal for dealing with “perceived inconsistencies” in String Confusion Objections filed over new top level domain names. The plan would deal with two cases in which different panels came to different conclusions on objections filed against the same exact strings: .cam/.com and .cars/.car. The inconsistencies in string confusion objections ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Web and .Webs: “There can be usually one” - VistaPrint will have to duke it out with Web.com if it wants the .webs brand TLd. The International Centre for Dispute Resolution has handed in its final determination for the controversial String Confusion Objection process. In this case, Web.com won against Vistaprint’s two applications for .webs. As a result, .webs will now be in a contention set with Web.com’s application for .web. If Vistaprint wins the contention set, then .web–often pointed out as the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
BusinessForSale.com survives UDRP - BusinessESforSale.com (plural) failed to show it had trademark rights in its descriptive name. Although there are many benefits to using a good descriptive domain name, there’s also a drawback: other people can use similar domains, too. That’s the case with BusinessESforSale.com, which just lost a UDRP against the owner of BusinessforSale.com. The complainant failed to show that the disputed domain name was confusingly similar to a trademark in which it has rights ... read more ...
Tue 11th February 2014
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Reminder: a tip turn domain name matters in a UDRP - Panels will not always ignore the top level domain name in UDRP cases. With niche top level domain names like .clothing and .plumbing now on the market, I’d like to clear up a common misconception about UDRP and whether the top level domain name should be ignored in such disputes. Many people believe that the top level domain name is ignored by panels when it comes to confusing similarity. In other words, if the domain at issue is trademark.com, the panel will say ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New tip turn domain name lawsuit discharged though leaves doorway open for ACPA for TLDs - Judge grants motion to dismiss top level domain dispute. A federal district judge has dismissed (pdf) a lawsuit brought by Del Monte International against Del Monte Corporation over the top level domain name .delmonte. In doing so, the court also left the door open on the possibility of the Anti-cybersquatting Protection Act (ACPA) being applied to new top level domain names. Here’s the background: Del Monte International (DMI), a licensee of the Del Monte brand ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Video Game attention fails to kick Amazon.com’s .Game - No cheat codes available for community objection. The Entertainment Software Association, a U.S. industry group for the video game industry, has failed to quash Amazon.com’s application to run the .game top level domain name. ESA filed a community objection against Amazon’s application. There are six applicants for .game, but ESA only went after Amazon.com’s application because it proposes operating the domain as a “closed” registry. This means other companies ... read more ...