An vast UDRP case - Cases shouldn’t be heard if they’re this bad. So this guy William (Bill) Robert Johnson forms a company called Aahara Enterprises Pty. He registers the domain aahara.com on October 3, 2011 for his business. But he also wants Ahara.com, and tries to buy it from the owner. The owner’s last name is Hara, and the owner’s sister is Asuka Hara (A. Hara). The owner registered the domain over a decade ago. Negotiations to buy the domain don’t go to Johnson’s liking ... read more ...

JotForm.com domain suspended, withdrawal 500k users in lurch - Online web form creator’s main domain name is suspended. JotForm, a WYSIWYG web form creator with 500,000 registered users, had its main domain name JotForm.com suspended by GoDaddy today. In a blog post, the company says: As a part of an ongoing investigation about a content posted in our site, a US government agency has temporarily suspended our jotform.com domain. We are fully cooperating with them, but it is not possible to say when the domain would be unblocked. The ... read more ...

Australian council blocks entrance to .info - New TLD backers take note. Australian parliamentarians can’t access .info domain names, according to a story on ITNews.com.au today. A block was placed late last year on the advice of the Defence Signals Directorate because the domain “is generally considered to be a source of more than its fair share of attacks and malicious software”, according to the department’s acting secretary. This doesn’t affect many people, and it may be a stupid way to run internet ... read more ...

Verizon complains about iPhone domains - Company goes after two alleged cybersquatters. [Update 4/13/12: Verizon won both cases.] Verizon has filed two separate cases with World Intellectual Property Organization concerning ten domain names that include the “Verizon” or “Vzw” and “iPhone” marks. The first case is for the domain name verizoniphone4s.com. Interestingly, this domain name loads the Verizon Wireless page for iPhones. But it’s merely loading it in a frame. The second case covers ... read more ...

Is induction an lapsed domain “swiping”? - Swiper, no swiping! I got a chuckle this morning from a “hard hitting” investigative story in Orange County. WFTV.com reports on Orange County sheriff’s candidate John Tegg. The TV station says that someone “swiped” the domain name for Tegg’s old campaign web site, johnteggforsheriff.com, and redirected it to a rival. Swiped, eh? Well, the domain expired in April 2011 and was picked up by a new registrant in November, according to historical whois records ... read more ...

ICANN reaffirms second turn of new gTLDs - Board instructs CEO to outline plan and steps for opening a second round. ICANN’s board of directors has passed a resolution reaffirming that it plans to open another round of new top level domain applications as “expeditiously as possible”. The resolution instructs the CEO to create a work plan that outlines the steps necessary to initiate a second round of applications. This includes addressing Governmental Advisory Committee concerns over trademark protection ... read more ...

Domain Holder Loses UDRP On TommyBahamaSucks.com: If You Own a “Sucks” Name You Better Have Content - A one member WIPO panel just awarded the domain name TommyBahamaSucks.com to the Trademark Holder. While we usually post the relevant facts and findings by the panel this case can be summed up citing this finding of the panel: “”This case ultimately turns on the quality of Respondent’s evidence.” “In this regard, however, the Panel notes Respondent has not submitted any evidence that it has established a right or legitimate interest in the tommybahamasucks.com domain name. In the end, this ... read more ...

Judge issues initial outcome in Monte Cahn v. Oversee.net - Judge sides with Oversee.net on narrow issue in lawsuit. The Honorable Stephen V. Wilson has issued a verdict in the first trial between Monte Cahn and his former employer, Oversee.net. The decision was extremely narrow, covering just one aspect of Cahn’s claims against the company. Cahn had a bonus plan that was essentially an earnout from when Oversee.net bought Moniker from Seevast. It provided up to $13 million over three years. One of the bonus measures was ... read more ...

.Ping heading in jeopardy, though Ping sailing through - PING golf manufacturer still has a TLD trademark going through the system. Last month I wrote about how the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had caught on to an trademark application for .Ping. It was filed by Karsten Manufacturing, which owns the PING line of golf products. Although the USPTO has a policy of not allowing trademarks for top level domain names, .Ping had proceeded to publication until it was caught by an examiner. But I just noticed another application ... read more ...

Hey NAF, this is a classical instance of retreat domain hijacking - Respondent wins but should have gotten more than that. National Arbitration Forum panelist Beatrice Onica Jarka got the “answer” correct in a recent UDRP case. But she really should have considered reverse domain name hijacking. The case was brought by deals site Shopzooey, Inc. Shopzooey, Inc was founded in 2011. Upon finding the domain name Shopzooey.com already registered, the company registered MyShopZooey.com in July 2011. ShopZooey.com was registered in ... read more ...

BuyDomains.com Beats Back UDRP on Solanum.com - Buydomains.com, just beat back a UDRP on the domain name solanum.com Here are the relevant facts and finding from the three member panel: “The Complainant is a Mexican individual who founded a business named Solanum Laboratories in Mexico in 2003.” “The Complainant is the owner of a variety of Mexican registered trademarks for the word mark SOLANUM, the earliest registered of which is trademark number 901,941 registered on September 28, 2005″ “At the date of this Decision, the website associated ... read more ...

James Brown estate doesn’t “feel good” after domain dispute - Godfather of Soul’s domain name can stay with management company. The estate of James Brown has lost a domain arbitration case for the domain name JamesBrown.com. The domain is owned by LAC Management, Inc., which manages “RJ The James Brown Band”. LAC argued that James Brown gave at least his tacit consent for it to register the domain name. In its pleadings, the estate even admitted that Brown may have consented to the domain registration while he was ... read more ...

National Car Rental sues over National.com typo – a domain it doesn’t even own - Car rental company demands typo of National.com, a domain it doesn’t even own. Vanguard Trademark Holdings, which owns the National car rental brand, has filed a cybersquatting lawsuit (pdf) against the domain name Natiional.com. The company filed a UDRP against the domain name already. It lost that case in June. On the same day it won a similar case for another typo, Nationnal.com. Part of the reason it lost the Natiional.com case is because the panel ruled it’s ... read more ...

Verizon Sues Parked.com & DirectNic For Cybersquatting on Over 600 Domain Names - According to a blog post on paidcontent.org, Verizon has filed suit against Parked.com, the ICANN  accredited registrar Directnic and John Doe defendants for cybersquatting  on more than 600 domain names. The 36 page federal suit was filed on January 27th in the Central District of California, including over 8 pages which just lists the domain names at issue. This is not the first time that Verizon has sued DirectNic. The suit asks $100,000 per domain in statutory damages, the transfer of all domain ... read more ...

Shuzi seller loses conflict for Shuzi.com - A Shuzi bracelet is supposed to work miracles, but it doesn’t have powers to “steal” domain names. ShuziQi, which sells “Shuzi” bracelets, has lost a domain dispute over the domain Shuzi.com. The details of the case aren’t as entertaining as what Shuzi is, so I’ll be brief on the case. Basically, the owner of the domain registered it four years before ShuziQi existed, and Shuzi’s English transliteration can mean “digital”. The domain owner registered ... read more ...

USPTO to Karsten: not so quick with .PING - Trademark office sends office action to PING Golf brand owner. On Wednesday I posted a list of 115 trademark applications that could be related to new top level domains, along with their current status. The USPTO has a policy of not granting trademarks on top level domains, and the number of “speculative” trademark applications has ballooned as ICANN gets ready to expand the TLD universe. I discovered that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office was doing a good ... read more ...

WIPO gives Twitter renouned typo Twittr.com - Twitter gets typo of its Twitter.com domain name. A World Intellectual Property Organization panel has awarded Twitter the domain name Twittr.com in a uniform domain name dispute resolution policy (UDRP) proceeding. Twittr.com was originally registered before Twitter’s “first use in commerce” date on its trademark for “Twitter”. Although Twitter says it actually started the service prior to this first use date, it was a moot point in this case because the ... read more ...

Hate SOPA: Check Out The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA); The US Has Already Signed It - Forbes.com just covered the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, ) (ACTA) which is an Agreement or treaty if you will, which contains some provisions “which are similar to – and more expansive than – anything we saw in SOPA.” The ACTA is being treated as by the US as an Executive Agreement rather than a treaty.  A treaty would have to be approved by the Senate, while an Executive Agreement can just be signed by the President. President Obama signed the ACTA a few months ago. According to ... read more ...

115 Top turn domain trademarks and their stream status - I’ve made plenty of commotion about companies filing for trademarks on future top level domain names. It always seems that they’re successfully pulling a fast one on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. But after an exhaustive analysis of 115 trademark applications, I’ve actually found that the U.S.P.T.O. is mostly on top of things when it comes to this trademarking game. In almost all cases, the trademark examiner has sent an office action to the applicant ... read more ...

Some authorised advice: LegalAdvice.org is generic - Panel rules against company claiming rights to LegalAdvice.org. A company called Capitalism, Inc. didn’t quite get the legal advice it needed in a recent UDRP case. The company asked a National Arbitration Forum panel to give it the domain name LegalAdvice.org. No such luck, the panel ruled. After all, it’s merely a descriptive term. Capitalism, Inc does have a trademark on the term, but not in the class of legal services. The terms of the domain name are common ... read more ...

Doh! AARP counsel forgets to insert screenshot, loses case - AARP wins two cases for similar domain names but loses third. The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) just received determinations in three cases it filed for aarpdiscounts.info, aarpdiscounts.net, aarpdiscount.org, and AARPdiscounts.org. It won rights to all of the domains except AARPdiscounts.info. You may be asking yourself how three different panelists looked at very similar domains, all of which allegedly forward to monetization pages, and one disagreed ... read more ...

Mail Boxes Etc. in Spain gets Mailboxes.org in dispute - UDRP panel hands over Mailboxes.org domain name. MBE Spain 2000, S.L., which manages franchises of Mail Boxes Etc. in Spain, has been awarded the domain name Mailboxes.org by a World Intellectual Property Organization panel. The domain name was owned by a franchisee of MBE Spain. After the case was filed the franchisee forwarded the domain name to a new web site. The decision is in Spanish, so I can’t quite understand if the previous page it resolved to used the ... read more ...