Tag Archives: legal

Fri 5th October 2012
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
WIPO Panel Finds Reverse Domain Name Hijacking, Without Domain Holder Asking For It - A one member panel just found Pick Enterprises, Inc. of Yarmouth, Maine, guilt of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH) on the domain name womantowomanhealthcenter.com And the best part is the domain holder didn’t even ask for a RDNH finding. The panel found the Complainant case conduct was poor especially in light of its pre-filing discussion with the domain holder , it made a finding of RDNH on its own initiative. “This Panel firmly believes a UDRP panel may make this inquiry in an appropriate ... read more ...
Thu 4th October 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Company sues to get Reinvention.com domain name - Marketing company claims domain infringes its re:invention mark. An Illinois marketing company called Reinvention, Inc. has sued data sampling company Reinvention, LLC, which owns the Reinvention.com domain name. The brief, five page complaint (pdf) claims that Reinvention, LLC is infringing on Reinvention, Inc’s trademark for “re:invention”. Reinvention, Inc. filed for its trademark last year and it was granted this year. It claims first use in commerce in ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
L.A. association denied possibility to use dot.com bust Kozmo.com’s domain name - Kozmo.com may be defunct but it’s domain registration lives on. In July I wrote about how Los Angeles company Yummy Foods, LLC wanted to relaunch the Kozmo.com delivery brand. Kozmo.com was one of the biggest dot.com busts. It raised around $250 million in order to deliver a pack of gum to your house with no delivery fee. Yummy Foods has two trademarks for “kozmo” for delivery of food and other goods. But despite Kozmo.com going out of business over a decade ... read more ...
Tue 2nd October 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.XXX registry ups ante in online porn corner fight - ICM Registry files counterclaims against online adult entertainment giant. Is it possible to have a monopoly on online porn? That’s part of the argument in a legal fight between porn giant Manwin and .xxx registry ICM registry. Last week ICM Registry filed counterclaims (pdf) against Manwin in response to Manwin’s antitrust lawsuit over .xxx. It’s seeking treble damages on at least $40 million in damages. ICM claims that Manwin grew to dominance with its free ... read more ...
Mon 1st October 2012
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
ICM Operator of .XXX Counter Sues Manwin & Digital Playground For $120 Million - ICM the operator of the .XXX Top Level Domain (TLD) just filed a counterclaim again Manwin Licensing International, the company that owns YouPorn.com and Digital Playground, Inc, both of which filed suit against ICM and ICANN over the .XXX extension. ICM is asking the court to award it $120 Million dollars (treble damages), punitive damages, attorney fees and for injunctive relief. The counter claim is under several counts including  “Combination or Conspiracy in Restraint of Trade” , violation ... read more ...
Thu 27th September 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Kate Spade files complaints over .co and .xxx domains - Company upset over Kate Spade domain names. Fashion brand Kate Spade, LLC has filed UDRP complaints at World Intellectual Property Organization against the owners of two domain names: KateSpade.co and KateSpade.xxx. KateSpade.co resolves to a page announcing that the domain name is for sale; the .xxx domain goes to a domain name registrar “coming soon” page. Kate Spade has filed UDRP complaints before — but these are the first two since 2008. That makes me think ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
EU organisation calls due Whois changes “unlawful” - EU data protection group says law enforcement’s wish list would be unlawful in European Union. In May I wrote about some of the requests law enforcement agencies were making for the new ICANN registrar accreditation agreement. Some of the requests included verifying phone numbers, annual whois updates, and retaining IP addresses. Now the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party has chimed in, stating that these requirements are likely unlawful in the European Union. In ... read more ...
Wed 26th September 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ESQwire.com wins UDRP for customer with minority anticipating of RDNH - A RNDH opinion worth reading. Ari Goldberger’s ESQwire has helped its client PortMedia defend the domain name Altom.com in a UDRP. One of the panelists determined that the case was reverse domain name hijacking, and his point of view is worth reading. The domain name was registered in 2002. Although it was protected by whois privacy for much of the time, I have good reason to believe that the current registrant is the one that registered the domain name back in ... read more ...
Tue 25th September 2012
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USPS on Donuts: You’re undercapitalized - USPS fears Donuts won’t deliver on .delivery. Well, this is amusing. The United State Postal Service has just filed a comment on Donuts’ application for the .delivery top level domain name. What’s the USPS concerned about? That Donuts is undercapitalized to run its domain names. Here’s what @thereforeicann has to say about that: The comments were submitted by USPS lawyers Lewis and Roca LLP for the Financial Capability Evaluation Panel. Subject line: “Insufficient ... read more ...
Mon 24th September 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
CrossFit Blows (and CrossFit isn’t happy about that) - Florida training center upsets CrossFit. CrossFit may be good at kicking peoples’ butts into shape at the gym, but now it’s doing burpees in front of an arbitration panel. A UDRP case was just filed at National Arbitration Froum for the domain name CrossfitBlows.com. What’s interesting is that the domain name is owned by an apparent rival to the CrossFit program called Monsters Training Center in Florida. If you go to CrossFitBlows.com you’ll see an unfriendly ... read more ...
Thu 20th September 2012
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Ashley Furniture files cybersquatting lawsuit opposite owners of 123 domain names - Company says defendant used to work at ad agency that catered to home furnishings companies. Ashley Furniture is a pretty aggressive UDRP filer. It usually goes after clear cut cases of cybersquatting, save for one egregious case for Ashley.com filed in 2008. Now the company is turning to the courts in a dispute against a Maryland man. The company just filed suit (pdf) against Jon Parks, who the company alleges violated the Anti-Cybersquatting Protection Act by registering ... read more ...
Tue 18th September 2012
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Breaking: The Lawsuit On The $1.4 M Ad.com TRAFFIC Auction Purchase Is Over: AOL.com Is The New Owner - The long running dispute over the domain name Ad.com is over and AOL.com has possession of the domain. It was back in April 2009 when the domain name ad.com was bought at the Moniker.com TRAFFIC domain auction for $1.4 Million dollars by Directi. However in August 2009, the then owner of the domain name, Marcos Guillen filed a lawsuit against Directi and Skenzo for refusing to close on the purchase of the domain name. AOL.com sent Directi a claim that it held a trademark on the term advertising.com ... read more ...
Mon 17th September 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
WallStreet.com: row manners retreat domain name hijacking - Wall-Street.com blasted for its attempt to hijack WallStreet.com domain name. A three person World Intellectual Property Organization panel has found Wall-Street.com, LLC guilty of reverse domain name hijacking over the domain name WallStreet.com. Wall-Street.com based much of its UDRP case against WallStreet.com on some relatively recent transfers of the domain name, which it said were new registrations. However, it turns out the domain name has essentially been ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
City of Paris systematic to compensate $100k for retreat domain name hijacking - Paris guilty of reverse domain name hijacking, ordered to pay over $100,000. A U.S. federal district court has ordered Ville de Paris (City of Paris) to pay $100,000 for reverse domain name hijacking and tortious interference. Judge Melinda Harmon also ordered the city to pay $26,830 in attorney’s fees and costs. The judgment stems from a UDRP the city of Paris filed against the owner of Parvi.org in 2009. In that case, panelist Andrew Christie decided to give ... read more ...
Fri 14th September 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Did “Netbank” lie, or was it only unhandy in this UDRP? - A quick look at archives disproves a UDRP complainant’s statement. UDRP complainants and their lawyers make all sorts of claims when filing UDRPs. Sometimes they make assertions that are false, and sometimes these are honest mistakes. But at what point does it become deliberate? And at what point does not using freely available tools to verify complaints become problematic? Take the decision just handed down by WIPO against NetBank for the domain name bancanet.com. (I ... read more ...
Thu 13th September 2012
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Apple Misses Securing The Domain Of Another New Product: Ear Pod & Maybe Infringing On TM For HearPod - According to PatentlyApple.com, Apple, Inc, rushed to get a trademark application filed in Europe last night for a new product it announced yesterday at its Apple Event, the Ear Pod. As we have discussed before Apple has been awful about obtaining domain names that match their products prior to announcing them and this is just other case. The domain name Earpod.com has been registered since 2008 and is being forwarded to a hearing clinic site at: myhearpod.com. The company that owns the domain name ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
UDRP row gets LivingSocal.com preference correct - Socal may be a typo of social.com, but it also means something. I frequently write about when UDRP panels make the wrong decision, and sometimes that’s the case even when they find for the respondent. Some domainers give me grief for it, but I call it how I see it. Last night Michael Berkens wrote about the decision for LivingSocal.com, which LivingSocial.com said was a typo, and how he thought the decision in favor of the respondent would get trademark holders ... read more ...
Mon 10th September 2012
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Adrian Peterson needs a new lawyer - Mistake ridden domain name complaints cost the player his online identity. Minnesota Vikings player Adrian Peterson needs to get a new lawyer — and not for his criminal issues. He needs new intellectual property lawyers. If your lawyers make a mistake once, perhaps you overlook it. But twice? Back in April Adrian Peterson won a UDRP for the domain name AdrianPetersonOnline.com. But his attorneys at Gant Hicks asked for the domain name registration to be canceled ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
GEICO wins GEIC.com domain name dispute - Insurance company wins control of domain name that leaves off the ‘o’. A World Intellectual Property Organization panel has awarded the four letter domain name GEIC.com to insurance giant GEICO. The owner of the domain name did not respond to the complaint. Although GEIC.com could certainly be used for a number of legitimate purposes, the recent history of the domain name shows that it generally has been used to take advantage of its similarity to the insurance ... read more ...
Sun 9th September 2012
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UDRP craziness alert: Oakley wins one “fake” case, loses a other - Win won, lose another: the inconsistency of UDRP. A couple weeks ago I wrote about how Oakley lost a UDRP case over the domain name MyFakeOakleySunglasses.com. The panelist in that case, Houston Putnam Lowry, ruled that the domain name was not confusingly similar to Oakley’s mark because it contained the word “fake”. Everybody knows what the work “fake” means. The word “fake” appears before the trademark in the domain name. The web site makes it pretty ... read more ...
Fri 7th September 2012
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Libya loses anticybersquatting lawsuit - Libya and its embassy lose a domain name lawsuit that started well before Gaddafi’s overthrow. A federal district court yesterday handed down a ruling in a very interesting cybersquatting case, and much of the interest lies in who the plaintiff was: Libya. Back in 2006 The Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya and the Embassy of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya filed suit against Ahmad Miski for cybersquatting. (After the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi’s government, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Public Storage refiles UDRP, row declines to hear it - Company upset that decision was different from similar case it filed. Generally speaking, the only reason a UDRP panel will re-hear a case is if the complainant brings forth new evidence that could not have been discovered prior to the initial case. But that didn’t stop Public Storage from filing a new case against the owner of publicstoragephoenix.com. Here’s the background: In October 2011 Public Storage lost a case against the owners of publicstorage-phoenix.com ... read more ...
Wed 5th September 2012
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
TeachBook.com Buys TeachQuest.com For $1,950, As It Settles Its Lawsuit With Facebook.com - Back in August of 2010 we posted about Facebook.com suing the site, TeachBook.com alleging trademark infringement. Today comes word from ChicagoBusiness.com that TeachBook.com has changed their domain name to TeachQuest.com. “Teachbook, the Northbrook-based site sued by Facebook Inc. for using the word “book” in its name, has changed its name to “TeachQuest” as part of a settlement with the Palo Alto, Calif.-based social-networking giant.” “We are pleased to announce that Facebook and ... read more ...
Tue 4th September 2012
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Fed Court Rules No In Rem Jurisdiction In Washington D.C. For ACPA - A Federal Court ruled that an in rem action under the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) cannot be brought in Washington D.C. based off of ICANN having an office in DC since ICANN is not a “domain name authority” as contemplated by ACPA’s in rem jurisdiction provisions. The plaintiff bought suit in the DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, claiming that the court had jurisdiction because ICANN maintains an office in Washington, D.C., and is a “domain name authority” ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Formula 1 group woos cybersquatter, afterwards files complaint - After lavishing gifts on cybersquatter, Formula 1 team has a change of heart. With Formula 1 coming to Austin in just two months, I was interested to see this UDRP brought by a Formula 1 team. Force India Formula One Team Limited, which is strangely located in the United Kingdom, filed a dispute against the registrant of saharaforceindia.com and saharaforceindiaf1.com. The registrant of these domain names registered the domains the same day the Formula 1 team announced ... read more ...