Tag Archives: legal

Mon 1st April 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Lawsuit: cybersquatters attempted to fool suppliers out of $60,000+ of merchandise - W. W. Williams says fraudsters uses domain name to try to trick suppliers to send merchandise. Usually when a cybersquatter grabs a domain similar to a company’s name, the cybersquatter just hopes to make a few bucks from a parked page. But sometimes the perpetrator has much more nefarious plans. W.W. Williams, which provides services and products to industrial companies, alleges that’s the case with the registrant of WWWilliamsInc.com. The company uses the domain ... read more ...
Sun 31st March 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
“Domainer” and “Domain Parking” strike CNN.com home page - Article discusses cybersquatter who calls himself a domainer. One of the top stories on CNN.com today is about a self-proclaimed “domainer”. Unfortunately, that domainer is a cybersquatter, so the article doesn’t paint domainers in a positive light. The article is about Taikwok Yung. I’ve written about Yung before, when he registered domains related to Bank of America and Merrill Lynch when they planned their merger. Back then I took issue with him calling ... read more ...
Fri 29th March 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Introducing RDNH.com: a database of retreat domain name hijacking cases - 129 reverse domain name hijacking cases and counting… Today I’d like to introduce you to RDNH.com, a site that provides a database of reverse domain name hijacking cases under UDRP. The site is a “collaboration” between myself, Nat Cohen, and David Lahoti. I say “collaboration” because Nat has been doing most (all) of the work and David’s UDRPSearch.com has been a key data source. As for me, my only collaboration on the project is lending the RDNH.com ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICC publishes initial list of new TLD Community Objections - Group posts first 28 objections. International Chamber of Commerce, which is handling new TLD objections for community objections and limited public interest objections, has published a list of pending cases. The list so far includes 28 objections. All of the published limited public interest pbjections were already known as they were filed by the independent objector. But the community objections include some new ones. Community Objections include: The International ... read more ...
Thu 28th March 2013
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
2K+ Domains Frozen By Court In Joel Williams Case: Is One Of Your’s On The List? - A Tennessee State Chancery Court issued a temporary injunction freezing almost 2,200 domain names. Many of the domains subject to the court order yesterday are not owned by any party to the lawsuit. In fact at five of the domain’s on the list belong to my company, Worldwide Media, Inc., Other domains on the  frozen list belong to other well known domainers including Telepathy, Inc., BuyDomains, RareNames, Inc., Mike Mann’s Domain Asset Holdings, Jon Schultz of Blue String Ventures, Inc, HugeDomains.com,  ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
MLM association denied Zija.com domain in dispute - Company was founded two years after domain registered. Zija International, a multi-level marketing company that sells nutritional and dietary supplements, has failed to get the domain name Zija.com through a UDRP. The registrant of the domain name registered it in 2002, two years before Zija even existed. He then used the domain name to forward to one of his web sites until 2006, which Zija threatened legal action against him. At that time, the respondent stopped ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
California male guilty of retreat domain name hijacking - Sorry, you can’t just take a domain because you have a business plan for it. A California man starting a business called Joopa has been found guilty of attempted reverse domain name hijacking. Edward Smith attempted to purchase the domain name Joopa.com for a new business (which is currently online at Joopa.tv). He first offered $500, and then upped his offer to $2,600. The domain owner wanted much more. According to the domain owner, it was after Smith was originally ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Nordstrom fails to get rough claim opposite NoMoreRack.com - Judge hands victory to online retailer NoMoreRack.com. Here’s an update on a lawsuit I wrote about in October. Upscale retailer Nordstrom, which also operates outlet stores under “The Rack” name, sued online flash sales and discount site NoMoreRack.com. It claimed NoMoreRack.com’s brand and domain name infringed its trademarks. This week the judge on the case denied Nordstrom’s motion for a preliminary injunction against NoMoreRack. Had Nordstrom succeeded, ... read more ...
Wed 27th March 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
United States Postal Services only squandered your income objecting to .mail tip turn domain - USPS should stick to delivering mail. This morning World Intellectual Property Organization posted that the United States Postal Service has objected to the seven applications to run a .mail top level domain. Really, USPS? First of all, the type of objection filed (legal rights objection) is designed as a vehicle for trademark holders. Last time I checked the USPS didn’t have a trademark on “mail”. Here are the criteria for a legal rights objection: (i) takes ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Never let an worker register your association domain name in their possess name - Make sure your company is the named registrant of your company’s domain names. This is just a friendly public service announcement to all small business owners out there. I just finished reading a domain dispute regarding the domain name TexasCash.com. The complainant, TCR Business Systems, alleged that the respondent registered the domain on its behalf when he was employed by TCR. The respondent disagrees with TCR’s allegations. Regardless of who’s telling ... read more ...
Tue 26th March 2013
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Here Are a Affidavits & Study Verisign Used In Support Of Its Objection To .Cam: - Verisign, Inc., operator of the .com TLD registry, has filed objections to three applications with ICANN for a new gTLD, .cam. Verisign retained me to design and conduct a survey to determine whether there is likely to be string confusion between the applied-for .cam gTLD and the existing .com TLD.  This report details the methodology and results of the survey. As described in more detail later in this report, the survey results showed a net confusion level of 39% that must be attributed to the ... read more ...
Mon 25th March 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Pinterest files the initial UDRP - Company targets Pinterest.info, and I bet it will be filing a lot more domain disputes soon. [Update: the domain owner gave the domain to Pinterest.] Image-based social networking service Pinterest has filed its first domain name dispute under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). The case was filed against the domain Pinterest.info, which was registered in May 2011 by someone in Los Angeles. As of right now the domain resolves to a Go Daddy holding ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Pinterest objects to Amazon’s skeleton for .Pin domain name - Pinterest sticks a pin in Amazon’s .pin top level domain application. Pinterest has filed a legal rights objection against Amazon.com over its application to run the .pin top level domain. As with Amazon’s other top level domain applications, it plans to operate .pin as a closed registry and will not offer second level domain names to consumers and businesses. While you can understand what Amazon would do with other domain names it has applied for, such as .book ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Company objects to Chinese IDNs over contractual and obvious rights - Group that partnered with Chinese government for IDNs claims that new TLDs will infringe contractual and intellectual property rights. A legal rights objection is supposed to be filed based on trademarks, but a Singapore company has filed two objections based on alleged contractual terms and patent rights. i-DNS.net says it has filed objections against Chinese Network Information Center (“CNNIC”) and China Organizational Name Administration Center (“CONAC”) ... read more ...
Sat 23rd March 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Is Google removing prepared to make an Open Patent Pledge? - Google registered domain names yesterday for an “Open Patent Pledge”. When Google acquired Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion, it was clear that a big reason for its purchase was Motorola’s patent portfolio. Now it looks like the company might be getting ready to make some sort of “Open Patent Pledge”, although what that actually is remains to be seen. Yesterday the company registered OpenPatentPledge.com (and .net/.org) as well as OpnPledge.com. (It couldn’t ... read more ...
Fri 22nd March 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Here’s how new TLD objections work - An explanation of new top level domain objections. Yesterday I wrote about a number of objections filed against new top level domain applications. I also explained the four types of objections. So just how do these objections work? In a lot of ways they are modeled after UDRP, except the fees are higher and there’s more flexibility. There’s also no precedent to go on, either, which is no small matter. Similar to UDRP, ICANN has set its own rules for Dispute Resolution ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
“Gold Community” objects to .Gold tip turn domain - A sign of things to come in community objections against new TLDs? After posting yesterday about some of the objections to Donuts’ new top level domain applications, I received word that the company has received an additional community objection… on .Gold. Yes, apparently the “gold community” has objected to .gold. The case was filed by the World Gold Council, which is the only competing applicant for the .gold domain. Perhaps someone O-G’d. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Objections filed opposite .com and .org IDN tip turn domains - Russian IDNs face legal rights objections. VeriSign and Public Interest Registry have hit a speedbump in their plans to role out versions of .com and .org for the Russian market. VeriSign’s .com transliteration .ком and Public Interest Registry’s Russian equivalent for .org, .орг, have been objected to with Legal Rights Objections. Both objections were filed by two companies, Regtime Ltd. and Legato Ltd. Regtime is an ICANN-accredited registrar, assuming ... read more ...
Thu 21st March 2013
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
17 New gTLD Objections Filed At WIPO: Including .Vip; .Food; .Now - 17 more Legal Rights Objections have been filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization: (WIPO) today largely filled with one applicant for a particular gTLD filing a Right’s Objection to all the other applicants for the same string. This is in addition to the 10 objections reflected on WIPO’s site yesterday. Including in today’s update is objections filed to  5 applications for the new gTLD .VIP filed by I-Registry, Ltd which is also an applicant for .VIP, so basically I-Registry ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Objection! What objections opposite Donuts’ TLDs uncover us about a subsequent proviso of a new TLD game - An early look at new TLD objections shows some questionable claims. The deadline to file objections against new top level domain applications was March 13. Dispute resolution providers are slowly posting the objections, but it looks like what has been posted so far is just the tip of the iceberg. Donuts, the largest TLD applicant with 307 applications, has informed Domain Name Wire that it received around 40 objections. Donuts provided details on a limited number ... read more ...
Wed 20th March 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Bloomberg sues sploggers regulating Google’s Blogger - Company upset over blogs using “Bloomberg” in subdomain and scraping Bloomberg content. Bloomberg has filed a lawsuit (pdf) in U.S. District Court in New York against four John Does using Google’s Blogger service. The defendants have set up blogs on the service that use third level domains that include the Bloomberg name. Bloomberg says the defendants are committing trademark infringement. The blogs at issue are: BloombergWest.blogspot.com BloombergDealFeed.blogspot.com BloombergLondon.blogspot.com BloombergCommods.blogspot.fr Bloomberg ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
WIPO posts 11 authorised rights TLD objections: .blue, .academy, .goo and more - Google and Donuts amongst those hit with legal rights disputes over top level domains. World Intellectual Property Organization has added ten legal rights objections disputes to its list of new top level domain objections. It recently posted the dispute between Del Monte Corporation and Del Monte International GmbH for .DelMonte. The new additions are: .Coach Coach, Inc. against Donuts (Coach is the only other applicant for .coach) .Academy Academy Sports + Outdoors ... read more ...
Tue 19th March 2013
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
University of Central Florida sues wine store that owns UCFliquorstore.com - University of Central Florida takes issue with liquor store’s marketing and domain name. The page that used to be at UCFLiquorStore.com. Screenshots.com on December 23, 2012.The University of Central Florida has sued a local liquor store that bills itself as “Your Official UCF Liquor Store”. Pat’s Liquor, which is located about a mile from UCF’s Orlando campus, has been using the domain name UCFLiquorStore.com and pitching itself as the official local store ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
FairSearch files grave objections opposite Google’s .search, .fly and .map TLD applications - Group claims three TLDs would give Google an unfair competitive advantage. A consortium that promotes competition in search has filed objections against three of Google’s top level domain bids. Robin Wauters with The Next Web was the first to write about the objections this morning. FairSearch filed objections with International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) over .search, .fly, and .map. ICC is one of three dispute resolutions providers hearing new TLD objections. ICC ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Why a DOJ retard on new TLD auctions doesn’t make sense - I have a hard time understanding how a private auction would be illegal in the case of new TLD allocation. A couple weeks ago a new TLD applicant told me they weren’t participating in private TLD auctions because they thought the auctions would ran afoul of U.S. laws. Now we have some confirmation that there are at least legitimate concerns, as Uniregistry announced that the Department of Justice declined to issue a business review on the topic. (It was an oral ... read more ...