Tag Archives: legal

Fri 2nd August 2013
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Hacker Site Run By “The Jester”; JestersCourt.cc Seized By Feds -   The site JestersCourt.cc appears to have been seized by the federal government today. The all too familiar ICE – Home Security Investigation seizure notice appears on JetersCourt.cc tonight The site was pretty popular having an Alexa rank of 353,000 and 57,000 in the US. According to a Wikipedia link on JestersCourt.cc before it was seized, the site was run by “The Jester who describes himself as grey hat hacktivist”. “He claims to be responsible for attacks on Wiki Leaks,Iranian President ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
If .amazon is killed, will Amazon bail on a new TLD program? - Amazon may be questioning its role in the first round of new top level domain applications. With the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) recommending that ICANN block Amazon.com’s application for the .amazon top level domain, it poses an interesting question: should Amazon.com bail out on the entire new TLD program? Assuming ICANN’s board agrees with the GAC, I suspect the question will at least be discussed at Amazon. The answer has a lot to do with what Amazon ... read more ...
Thu 1st August 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
The LRO is operative only fine, appreciate you - Weak cases leading to failed Legal Rights Objections. With objectors losing the first 25 decided Legal Rights Objections (LRO) to new top level domains, there are murmurs about whether or not LRO is working. The short answer: yes. The LRO was created to assuage fears that someone would cybersquat on a top level domain. Groups like Association for National Advertisers scared their constituents into thinking someone might apply for their well known brand. For example, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
I Reckon this association needs to re-read a UDRP - Company provides evidence to panel that destroys any chance of it winning UDRP for Reckon.com. Australian company Reckon Limited, which uses the web address reckon.com.au, has lost a UDRP for the domain name Reckon.com. It’s pretty clear what happened in this case. Reckon Limited tried to track down the owner of Reckon.com to buy the domain name, but quite simply couldn’t get a response. So, as a last ditch effort, it filed a UDRP. Of course, not being able to ... read more ...
Wed 31st July 2013
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Zynga Files A Lawsuit Over BangWithFriends.com For Trademark Infringement - According to Bloomberg.com, Zynga Inc. (ZNGA) filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California  against  the maker of the “Bang With Friends” claiming it infringes on Zynga’s trademark for its “with friends” family of games.     Zynga alleges the company “selected the name ‘Bang With Friends’ with Zynga’s game trademarks fully in mind, further claiming that the name infringes a trademark covering games such as “Words With Friends” and “Chess ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Objection opposite Google’s .music bid rejected - First of seven objections filed by DotMusic Limited fails. DotMusic Limited’s legal rights objection to Google’s application for the .music top level domain name has been rejected. Officially, panelist David J.A. Cairns ruled that DotMusic Limited didn’t have standing to bring the case because it was unclear if it (or other entities) owned the marks asserted in the case. Nevertheless, Cairns went ahead and considered whether the objection would be approved even ... read more ...
Tue 30th July 2013
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
You Know About UDRP’s; Have You Ever Heard Of A TDRP? - Have you ever heard of a TDRP? Until yesterday I didn’t when I ran into the NameCheap.com case which decision is still pending which apparently denied NameCheap.com’s claim to 7 domain names that a US federal judge ordered transferred to them in January. So unlike a UDRP which involves an alleged  rights holder as the Complainant and a domain holder as the respondent a TDRP is an dispute between registrars arising from inter-registrar transfer of domain names. The TDRP was approved by ICANN ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Yahoo gets obvious for prioritizing cybersquatting cases - Patent covers discovering and prioritizing cybersquatting issues. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted patent number 8,499,032 (pdf) to Yahoo for a “System and method for compiling a set of domain names to recover”. The invention, which I wrote about when the application was published in 2010, allows a trademark owner to generate a list of potentially infringing domain names. This list is run against network data to prioritize which domain names get ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Amazon.com, HP, Ford among those lobbying Washington about domain names - Big companies join domain heavyweights in lobbying U.S. government about domain name issues. It’s been a couple years since I’ve done a round up of how much domain name companies are spending on lobbying in Washington. I just ran an updated analysis and made two key observations. First, major domain name companies including VeriSign and Go Daddy are spending less on lobbying than they used to. Second, a lot of non-domain name companies are lobbying about domain ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Food Network loses food quarrel for .food tip turn domain name - Scripps wanted to claim universal rights to the term “food” on the web. The company behind the Food Network and Food.com, Scripps Networks Interactive, Inc., has lost an objection against a rival applicant for the top level domain name .food. In the objection against Dot Food, LLC, Scripps tried to argue that it basically owns the word “food”, and that consumers visiting a second level domain name under .food would assume that it was associated with the company. Respondent’s ... read more ...
Mon 29th July 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Law organisation claims general authorised domain name is cybersquatting - Law firm with the generic name “Outside Legal Counsel” sues Dan Rubin over OutsideLegalCounsel.com domain name. [Update: the case was resolved.] A law firm called Outside Legal Counsel Plc has sued JustDropped.com and its owner Dan Rubin, claiming he is cybersquatting on OutsideLegalCounsel.com. At first I thought the attorneys for the case made a mistake, as it appeared someone acting as outside general counsel (a common name for an outside law firm working on ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
JustFab.com sues Fab.com for infringing the trademark - Two fashion startups argue over which one is the most fabulous. This legal battle is absolutely fabulous! Just Fabulous, the company behind online fashion site JustFab.com, has sued white-hot e-commerce site Fab.com. Just Fabulous claims that Fab.com is infringing its Just Fab marks. The two sites are heavyweights. JustFab.com has raised over $100 million. Fab.com has raised over $300 million. Fab.com started as a social networking site, but later changed directions ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Gmail vs. Snail Mail: Google wins plea by USPS - USPS’ challenge to Google over .mail top level domain is denied. Last week, a World Intellectual Property Organization panelist delivered some bad news to the The United States Postal Service: its challenge to Amazon.com’s application to run the .mail top level domain was denied. Now the group’s challenge to Google’s bid to run .mail has also been returned to sender. The USPS suggested that it has some sort of rights to the term “mail”, in part because ... read more ...
Sat 27th July 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Verisign files initial UDRP given 2007 - .Com registry wants a .com. Verisign, the company that runs the .com registry, has filed a UDRP against a .com domain name. [Update: the registrant handed the domain name over and the case was terminated.] It’s the first UDRP the company has filed since it went after verisigngateway.com in 2007. The filing targets PoweredByVerisign.com, which was registered at GoDaddy last year by someone in Switzerland. Verisign uses the domain DomainsPoweredByVerisign.com to ... read more ...
Thu 25th July 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Demand Media successfully defends .CAM TLD opposite objection - Company defends one objection for .cam, still faces a string confusion objection. Demand Media subsidiary United TLD Holdco Ltd has defended itself against a legal rights objection over its .cam top level domain name application. AC Webconnecting Holding B.V., a competing applicant for the string, based its objection on community trademark registrations for “.cam” as a word as well as a .cam logo. It also said it is the controlling shareholder of a company that ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Song and .YellowPages new TLD objections denied - Two more objections fail, bringing total to 18. World Intellectual Property Organization panelists have denied two more Legal Rights Objections to new top level domain name applications. The latest failed objections are for .song and .yellowpages. Of the 18 determined cases so far, the objectors have lost in each of them. That has a lot to do with panelists and applicants sniffing out “trademark frontrunning” in which an entity applied for (and gained, in some ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Trademark frontrunner TLDDOT GmbH loses .GMBH objection - Company that trademarked .GMBH loses legal rights objection to competing applicant. TLDDOT GmbH, an applicant for the .gmbh domain name that has tried to “frontrun” the new TLD process with trademarks, has lost a legal rights objection against competing applicant InterNetWire Web-Development GmbH. TLDDOT’s objection was quite amazing, really. The company basically told the panel that it had filed trademarks and starting marketing .gmbh early on, so it should ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sports training association fouls out in D1.com domain name grab - Company fails to take D1.com domain name from rightful owner. D1 Sports Holdings, LLC has lost a UDRP complaint it filed against the domain name D1.com. As you can imagine, D1.com was registered a long time ago. It was registered in 1995 and belongs to New Dimension One Spas, Inc, which acquired the assets of Dimension One Spas earlier this year. Get it? Dimension One, or D1? Apparently D1 Sports Holdings, which claims it started using the D1 mark in 2003, didn’t ... read more ...
Wed 24th July 2013
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Judge Says Godaddy Is Not Entitled To Safe Harbor Protection On Parked Pages Program - In a 29 page ruling a California Federal Court denied Godaddy’s motion to have the case filed by the ACADEMY OF MOTION PICTURES ARTS AND SCIENCES, (the Oscars) which was filed in 2010, thrown out, denying Godaddy.com the Safe Harbor that domain name registrars typically enjoy. DomainNameWire.com reported last week that Godaddy was testing out some new parked landing pages, but this ruling might explain why Godaddy made the change removing pay per click traditional parked page advertising. Of course ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Misguided UDRP complainant #3,267 - Guy starts company in 2011, files UDRP against domain registered in 1999. Sigh. Another day, another completely baseless UDRP. This one comes courtesy of WowWe, Inc., which was represented by the law firm Lewis Barnes. WowWe began using its mark in 2011. The owner of WowWe.com registered the domain name in 1999. Yet, amazingly, WowWe argued that the disputed domain name was registered for the purpose of selling the domain name registration to it for valuable consideration ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Aptus Tech nailed for perplexing to steal domain name from Frank Schilling - Panel determines that Aptus Tech engaged in reverse domain name hijacking. Last month I asked why people didn’t do a bit of research before filing a UDRP against Frank Schilling. The specific case that prompted my article was Klipz.com, which had just been filed. The decision is in, and it’s clear that, not only did the complainant not research who owned the domain, but he didn’t research much about UDRP, either. A three person National Arbitration Forum panel ... read more ...
Tue 23rd July 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
True Religion seeks improved domain name by WIPO action - Company files complaint for domain name TrueReligion.com Publicly traded True Religion (NASDAQ: TRLG), maker of premium denim products, has a really long domain name: TrueReligionBrandJeans.com. Without doubt, a lot of fans of the brand type in TrueReligion.com when trying to find its website. So the company has filed a UDRP with World Intellectual Property Organization to try to get the domain name TrueReligion.com. TrueReligion.com was registered back in 1998. It’s ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sorting contribution from novella in a Trademark Clearinghouse - [Editors note: The Trademark Clearinghouse is a unique way for brand owners to protect themselves with the introduction of top level domain names. Jan Corstens, a partner at Deloitte (which operates the Trademark Clearinghouse), explains some of the common misconceptions about the service in this guest post.] With upcoming drastic changes to the Internet, including new generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) such as .nyc and .boston to .book and .lol – it is crucial that ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
It’s not unequivocally Walmart: Walmart goes after union’s satire site - Retailer files complaint to take over domain names used for parody site. Walmart has filed a Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) case with World Intellectual Property Organization against domain names registered by United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. The dispute seeks to take down the web site ReallyWalmart.org and the associated domain names ReallyWalmart.com/.net/.info. ReallyWalmart.org is a self-described parody site set up ... read more ...
Mon 22nd July 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN Ombudsman LaHatte reappointed to second term - Chris LaHatte appointed to second term. ICANN’s Board of Directors has reappointed Chris LaHatte as Ombudsman to another two year term. The ombudsman serves as an intermediary between ICANN and its constituents on matters related to things done by ICANN, its board, its staff, and constituent bodies. Some of LaHatte’s recent decisions have been about late objections to new top level domains and a complaint by DotAfrica Connect. LaHatte has proven less controversial ... read more ...