Tag Archives: legal

Fri 4th September 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Panel manners that Rightside's .Cam focus is still in a mix - String confusion objection ruling is overturned. Verisign’s successful string confusion objection against Rightside’s .cam top level domain name has been overturned. ICANN was put in a sticky situation after Verisign’s string confusion objections against two .cam applicants failed, but it prevailed against Rightside’s .cam application. The group decided to have a panel review the Rightside decision, and that panel has overturned (pdf) the original decision. As a result, the two other applicants ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Domain Dunce Award: Blue Coat - Security firm should admit it screwed-up labeling .zip the shadiest top level domain. It’s been a while since I’ve handed out a prestigious Domain Dunce award, but this week’s “Shady TLDs” report from security firm Blue Coat is very deserving. Both Michael Berkens and Kevin Murphy covered the original report, which labeled .Zip the shadiest top level domain with 100% shady sites. There’s just one problem: .Zip is an unreleased top level domain name from Google. There’s only one second ... read more ...
 
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CPE numbers don't supplement adult for CPAs - Accounting groups fail to make the case that they should get community status for .CPA applications. Two applicants for the .CPA top level domain name have lost Community Priority Evaluations. American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and CPA Australia Ltd both failed to score the required 14 points out of 16 necessary to get Community status. They were tripped up on the Nexus requirement, where neither scored a point. In both cases, the CPE panels noted that the applications restricted ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Emazing.nl nailed for Reverse Domain Name Hijacking - Web design firm in Netherlands is a reverse domain name hijacker. Web design firm Emazing B.V., which uses the domain name Emazing.nl, has been found to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking over the domain name Emazing.com. Amazingly, Emazing’s lawyers seem to have really shot themselves in the foot: they submitted a supplemental filing that was key to the RDNH finding. The owner of Emazing.com registered the domain name before the complainant had a trademark for Emazing. But Emazing.com ... read more ...
Mon 31st August 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Company tries to obey Chinese TM domain scam, fails miserably - The trademark domain name scam is one of the oldest in the book. A registrar from China emails you, saying that someone is trying to register domain names very similar to your trademark or existing domain names. They’re checking with you as a courtesy to see if you’d like to register the domains first. Although it might seem like a kind gesture, it’s all a lie. They’re trying to get you to register domain names through them. Now a Brazil company is apparently trying the same tack. But it ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.XYZ seeks to boot Verisign's consultant testimony - New TLD company claims some expert testimony should not be allowed. .XYZ is asking the court to dismiss expert testimony from four expert witnesses in Verisign’s false advertising lawsuit against the new top level domain company. Some of the court filings are heavily redacted, leaving out the juicy details many in the domain name want to know. All expert witness reports were filed under seal. For example, just what kind of deal did .XYZ have with Network Solutions when the latter gave away hundreds ... read more ...
Thu 27th August 2015
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Progressive Specialty Glass Company nailed for RDNH - Company fails to even make a prima facie of lack of rights or legitimate interest. Specialty drinkware company Progressive Specialty Glass Company has engaged in reverse domain name hijacking. National Arbitration Forum panelist Darryl C. Wilson came to this determination after the glass company filed a UDRP against Progressive Specialty Co Inc, a swag maker. Both companies have been in a business for decades, and Progressive Specialty Co Inc. registered the domain name back in 1999. It seems that, ... read more ...
Tue 25th August 2015
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Amazon wins: .Shop and .通販 not confusingly identical after all - Duh. Are the top level domain names .shop and .通販 likely to confuse a reasonable internet user? Certainly not visually. Nor aurally. They also don’t mean the same thing. According to fluent Japanese speakers, 通販 used to be the term for catalog/mail order shopping, and later encompassed online shopping. Yet panelist Robert Nau found them too similar in a string confusion objection filed by Commercial Connect against Amazon.com, applicant for the Japanese string. It was perhaps the most ... read more ...
Mon 24th August 2015
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Khloe Kardashian gets her (domain) name - Khloe will get domain name registered shortly after her first TV appearance. TV celebrity Khloe Kardashian has won a cybersquatting dispute, and will soon by the proud owner of the KhloeKardashian.com domain name. Kardashian and her agents filed the case against the domain name with World Intellectual Property Organization nearly two months ago. The domain name did not resolve to a web page at the time, but it was parked prior to that. It was also listed for sale on GoDaddy, but the listing has been ... read more ...
Sun 23rd August 2015
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Armor.com and Armour.com Domain Name Sell! Under Armour The Buyers? - Armor.com and Armour.com domain names have been sold! Both domain names were owned by Arms Armor, Inc. of Minneapolis, MN and registered at Network Solutions for a very long time. Both domain names have now transferred to NetNames Ltd. The Arms Armor website states that “Our new domain name is arms-n-armor.com! Please update your bookmarks now.” confirming the change of ownership. There was also a mention in the news section of the website dated August 17, 2015 and an August 10, 2015 statement ... read more ...
Sat 22nd August 2015
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
#BlackLivesMatter Launches JoinCampaignZero.Org: CampaignZero.org Is Hospital Asst Site - TheHill.com is just one of the many media outlets that reported on a new online platform for the Black Lives Matter movement:: “The Black Lives Matter movement announced on Friday that it has an official platform for curbing police violence and reforming criminal justice in the U.S. The social activism group released its most comprehensive policy outline to date on a website titled Campaign Zero “We can live in an America where the police do not kill people,” the group said on its new Internet ... read more ...
Fri 21st August 2015
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Lawyer Gerald M. Levine Writes The Definitive Book on UDRP's - At well over 500 pages, Gerald M. Levine who is an attorney,  and sits on panels of neutral arbitrators for the American Arbitration Association for commercial and IP disputes, has written the definitive book on the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy, (UDRP). The book is entitled “Domain Name Arbitration: A Practical Guide to Asserting and Defending Claims of Cybersquatting Under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy” Mr. Levine ” describes the book as an important, ... read more ...
Thu 20th August 2015
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Philip Morris takes down dispute sites in messy cybersquatting decision - Tobacco company convinces arbitration panelist to hand over domain names used to criticize it. One of the gripe sites Philip Morris just took down.Philip Morris has won another cybersquatting complaint against a long time nemesis. The company convinced a single member National Arbitration Forum panelist that David Delman should hand over six domain names he used as gripe sites about smoking: philipmorris.website, philipmorrisviolations.website, philipmorriscigarettediseases.org, philipmorriscigaretteskill.com, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Here are a Exhibit and Witness lists for a Verisign v. XYZ trial - Lists will hit home in the domain name industry. Verisign’s lawsuit against XYZ.com, LLC and Daniel Negari continues to move forward at full speed, thanks to the “rocket docket” in U.S. District Court Eastern District of Virginia. Both parties have submitted their proposed exhibit lists and witnesses for the trial. Reviewing the exhibit lists, it’s clear that if you emailed Daniel Negari about .xyz, there’s a good chance Verisign has reviewed that email. If you wrote or commented about ... read more ...
Mon 17th August 2015
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Donuts: Verisign perplexing to intimidate, brag competitors with .XYZ lawsuit - New top level domain company issues statement after court finds in its favor. A judge in U.S. District Court in Washington state has denied Verisign’s request for reconsideration in a subpoena battle involving competitor Donuts. Donuts says Verisign is trying to intimated and bully competitors through similar subpoenas. Verisign subpoenaed Donuts as a non-party in the .com registry’s lawsuit against .XYZ and Daniel Negari. Donuts fought back, asking the court to quash the subpoena. The judge ... read more ...
Fri 14th August 2015
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Verisign sues CentralNic and .XYZ over .Theatre, .Protection and .Security - Company upset that Verisign was dropped as registry services provider in favor of CentralNic. Earlier this week I noted a lawsuit Verisign filed in Virginia against .XYZ and Daniel Negari. Thanks to a request by the defendants to remove the case to federal district court, I now have a copy of the lawsuit (large PDF). As it turns out, Verisign originally sued Key Brand Entertainment, applicant for .Theatre, and CentralNic back in March in Circuit Court in Fairfax County. The basis of the lawsuit was ... read more ...
Wed 12th August 2015
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Fight over APE.com lands in court - Domain name is at the center of a family business dispute. The domain name Ape.com is the subject of a lawsuit just filed in U.S. District Court in Florida – Key West Division. The dispute is a weird one, and it sounds like the Scheu family doesn’t get together for Thanksgiving. Scheu Scheu, Inc. filed the lawsuit (pdf) against husband and wife Casey Scheu and Veronica Scheu, as well as the company Ape.com LLC. They threw in Network Solutions for good measure. I’m assuming that Scheu Scheu ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Bid.tv domain handed over in UDRP - Domain name expired after company was put in administration. The former bid.tv, before the company failed.National Arbitration Forum panelist Neil Anthony Brown has ordered the domain name Bid.tv transferred. The story of this domain name is interesting. It was used by UK company Sit-Up Ltd (trading as Bid Shopping) for many years. That company was put in administration (similar to Chapter 11 bankruptcy) last year. Earlier this year, an entity called Bid Shopping Limited acquired the intellectual ... read more ...
Tue 11th August 2015
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Verisign's lawsuit opposite .XYZ continues, pesters Donuts & ICANN as well - Lawsuit marches on, creating legal headaches for many of Verisign’s competitors. Why did Verisign sue .XYZ for disparaging .com and allegedly falsely inflating the company’s success? It’s pretty clear that Verisign thinks new top level domain names pose a threat to .Com, otherwise it wouldn’t have bothered. This goes beyond .XYZ. The lawsuit is surely costing Verisign and .XYZ a lot of money, something that the former has plenty of thanks to its monopoly on selling .com domain names. This ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Twitter Files 3 New Trademarks: TWTR, N Logo And Niche Creator - Twitter Inc. has filed 3 new trademarks including one for TWTR which is the NYSE stock symbol for the company. The trademark states: “Providing business and corporate information via a web site and via social media”. Twitter Inc. currently does not own the matching domain name TWTR.com according to whois records. The domain name is for sale currently on domain name marketplace Sedo.com, with a “make offer” listing that is pretty active as seen in the screen shot below: The domain name is ... read more ...
Wed 5th August 2015
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Two domain owners win UDRPs notwithstanding not responding - Panelists don’t blindly assume respondents are cybersquatting in two recent cases. Although it’s rare, domain name owners sometimes win UDRP filings despite not responding to the allegations. In these cases, the UDRP panelists actually use critical thinking on the merits of the case to make sure the complainant has met its burden. They don’t assume that a lack of response proves that the domain owner is a cybersquatter. Domain owners won two recent cases despite not responding to the complaints: The ... read more ...
Mon 3rd August 2015
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Lawsuit filed to redeem stolen preparation domain names - Suit alleges a dozen domain names were stolen using compromised email address. Texas company CMN.com LLC has filed a lawsuit to recover 12 domain names it alleges were stolen from it. According to the suit, the thief gained access to one of its email addresses and was able to use this to transfer the domain names to another registrar. The domains have various whois records, but the lawsuit claims that all of the domains were transferred by someone using one IP address. The company says it lost these ... read more ...
Sat 1st August 2015
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Fed Court of Appeals Affirms Dismal Of Name.Space's Claim Against ICANN's New gTlD Program - The United States’ Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed the dismissal of antitrust and other claims against ICANN made by a company called name.space, related to ICANN’s new generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) Program, in an opinion published today In 2013, a federal district court dismissed all of name.space’s claims, and today the Ninth Circuit affirmed that dismissal in all respects. name.space alleged that ICANN violated the Sherman Act, and various trademark and other laws, in establishing ... read more ...
Mon 27th July 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Unbiased.com saved in UDRP though no RDNH - UDRP panel is unbiased, finds in favor of domain name owner. The owner of Unbiased.co.uk has failed to win rights to the Unbiased.com domain name in a UDRP. Unbiased.co.uk helps people find financial advisers, mortgage brokers, solicitors and accountants. The company filed its cybersquatting claim on the basis of a trademark for unbiased.co.uk. While panelists Neil Brown, Henrik af Ursin and Paul M. DeCicco found against Unbiased.co.uk in the case, they declined to find the company to have engaged ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Vox Populi wants heading for .Sucks - Controversial new top level domain name registry wants to trademark “.sucks”. Vox Populi, the domain name registry for .Sucks, has applied for the trademark “.Sucks” with the U.S. Patent and Trademark office. The goods and services for the mark are “Domain name registration services; registration of domain names for identification of users on a global computer network.” The USPTO does not grant trademarks for top level domain names, so I’m not sure what Vox Populi hopes to accomplish ... read more ...