Tag Archives: legal

Fri 24th July 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Are IDN .com owners about to get screwed? - Verisign finds way to sign ICANN contract, but it might come at the expense of IDN investors. [Update: see comment from Verisign at end.] It’s been a long, long wait for owners of internationalized domain names under .com. The idea was that they’d get rights to IDN.IDN-as-transliteration domain names to match their IDN.com names when they came out. So they registered IDN.com domain names and held on to them for a decade, waiting for their investment to pay off. Given that the IDN-as-transliteration ... read more ...
Thu 23rd July 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Patent goblin relates for domain name government patent - Intellectual Ventures wants patent related to managing domain names and web hosting. Some big companies in the domain name space have lots of patents. Despite threats, no major players have tried to extract money out of their competitors. But registrars should be concerned about a recent patent application because of the company behind it: Intellectual Ventures. Through its company III Holdings 1, LLC, the company has applied for a patent for “System and Method for Domain Management and Migration”. The ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
"Spa Community" gets .Spa domain name - Group wins Community Priority Evaluation for .Spa. Asia Spa and Wellness Promotion Council Limited has won (for now) the sole right to operate the .Spa top level domain name after winning a Community Priority Evaluation for the name. The group scored 14 points (pdf) out of 16 to prevail. It lost one point for “Content and Use” and one for “Community Endorsement” under support. According to its application, Asia Spa and Wellness Promotion Council Limited “is the regional coordinating body ... read more ...
Wed 22nd July 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
John Berryhill gets stolen EHT.com domain returned by UDRP - Panel orders domain name stolen in 2013 to be returned to previous owner. Domain name attorney John Berryhill has successfully won the transfer of the domain name EHT.com for his client, in a rare case in which he acted on behalf of the complainant. John Dilks has owned EHT.com since 1997. The domain name was apparently stolen from Dilks in late 2013, but he didn’t know this until just recently. That’s because the thief kept the nameservers posted to Dilks’ hosting while he transferred the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
$50,000 chastisement for filing a whimsical UDRP! - Company pays big bucks after filing losing UDRP. A Belgium maker of ultrasound equipment has paid $50,000 to settle a lawsuit stemming from a frivolous UDRP it filed. SDT International filed a UDRP for the domain named SDT.com last year. The domain name is owned by Nat Cohen’s Telepathy, and SDT had tried to purchase the domain name before filing the complaint. (Cohen was on the Domain Name Wire Podcast recently, discussing similar frivolous cases). Upon receipt of the UDRP, Cohen reached out to ... read more ...
Tue 21st July 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Scripps files heading applications for new tip turn domains - Trademarking Living and Lifestyle. Scripps Networks Interactive, through its top level domain name company Lifestyle Domain Holdings, has filed for U.S. trademarks matching a number of the top level domain names it will run. The company filed multiple trademark applications for “Living”, “Lifestyle” and “Vana”, which all match new top level domain names. There are four intent-to-use trademarks for each word, the only difference being the goods and services descriptions. One description ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
E-Renter.com nailed for retreat domain name hijacking - Background check company filed complaint in abuse of cybersquatting policy. A background check on this company won’t come back clean anymore.E-Renter USA Ltd, which operates a background screening site for renters at E-Renter.com, has been found to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking over the domain name ERenter.com. The company filed a UDRP with World Intellectual Property Organization against Kevin Ham’s Vertical Axis. The owner of the background check company registered the domain ... read more ...
Thu 16th July 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
American Automobile Association loses cybersquatting box opposite locksmith - Group went after locksmith in Naples who uses the business name AAA Locksmith. American Automobile Association (AAA) has lost a cybersquatting claim against a Florida locksmith who uses the brand AAA Locksmith. Adam Cooper uses the domain name AAALocksmithNaples.com for his business, and AAA filed a UDRP with World Intellectual Property Organization to take his web address. The panel agreed that AAA is commonly used in business names and that American Automobile Association did not show that Cooper ... read more ...
Wed 15th July 2015
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Judge: "You were perplexing to set him up" in cybersquatting case - Judge rips apart cybersquatting lawsuit. Want to see what it’s like when someone brings a weak cybersquatting case in front of a judge? Domain Name Wire has obtained the transcript from a hearing over a motion for preliminary injunction in the WorkBetter.com case. Office Space Solutions, run by Harsh Mehta, is starting a new business called Work Better. It tried to buy WorkBetter.com from Jason Kneen, who registered the domain name in 1999, last year. Metha then filed a trademark application. ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
NF.com domain name saved in UDRP - Panel finds against French group but says it isn’t guilty of reverse domain name hijacking. Association Française de Normalisation (AFNOR), a French certification company, has lost a UDRP it filed against the owner of NF.com. AFNOR uses the domain name marque-nf.com. The case decision is in Chinese, so I invite any Chinese readers to chime in if I’ve missed anything key here. The domain name owner is in the milk products business, and NF is an acronym for the Chinese word for milk. The panel ... read more ...
Tue 14th July 2015
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Fake Story on New gTLD Domain, Bloomberg.Market Sends Twitter Shares Up Over 5% -   According to several sources, a fake news story appearing on a new gTLD domain name Bloomberg.Market sent shares of Twitter up over 5% today when they reported Twitter was going to be bought for $31 Billion dollars to over $38 a share. The domain is  Bloomberg.market, not Bloomberg.com but its made to look like Bloomberg.com   We have chatted on many occasions that trademark holders haveonly lightly  participated in the Sunrise periods for each new gTLD rollout with the exception of .porn, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
eNom wins eNoms.com. Registrant attempted to send a summary by Whois. - An amusing whois record for eNoms.com. Domain name registrar eNom has won a UDRP for eNoms.com. According to the decision, the owner of the domain name tried to sell the domain name to eNom for $1,500. That’s about the cost of filing a UDRP, but eNom probably didn’t want to set a precedent. What I find amusing about this case is that the domain name owner, who did not respond to the complaint, seems to have sent a message through the whois record: Registrant Organization: ENoms.com has been ... read more ...
Sun 12th July 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Some New TLDs fire a whole module in a foot - .Ooo registry Infinibeam takes back 9-month-old domain names. New top level domain names aren’t exactly flying off registrar’s shelves. They face decades of head start from .com and county code domains, universal accessibility challenges, and problems getting slotted in registrar search results. That’s bad enough, but some registries are giving the new domains an even bigger black eye. Consider .ooo, the crazy registry that predicted 1 million registrations in the first year and couldn’t ... read more ...
Wed 8th July 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Workbetter.com lawsuit discharged after decider disses case - Judge says it looked like a “set up”. Just one day after appearing in court and having the judge deny a motion for preliminary injunction, Office Space Solutions has dismissed a cybersquatting lawsuit over the domain name WorkBetter.com. The company, which is launching a new business called Work Better, filed the case last month in an effort to get the domain name from Jason Kneen, who registered the domain name in 1999. Today, attorney Roman Popov of The Bostany Law Firm filed to voluntarily ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
WordPress wins another turn opposite Chris Pearson - Thesis creator loses cybersquatting case. Automattic, the company behind WordPress, has successfully defended a challenge by Thesis developer Chris Pearson over the domain name Thesis.com. Pearson had a high profile spat with WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg about five years ago. Pearson had released his Thesis software with a licensing fee; Mullenweg argued it should be released under GPL because it contained lots of code from WordPress. The issue was apparently settled in 2010. Late last year, ... read more ...
Tue 7th July 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Verisign gets Domain Name Stockpiling patent - The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted patent number 9,075,886 (pdf) to Verisign for “Systems and methods for detecting the stockpiling of domain names.” We’ll call it domaindar for short. The patent explains ways that a registry can determine what a domain name registrar is doing with domain names after they expire. Are they deleting them or keeping them for themselves (i.e., stockpiling.)? To discover what registrars are doing with the domains, Verisign proposes checking site information ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
NetNames files Complaint w/ European Competition Commission on Vox Populi’s .SUCKS Pricing - NetNames.com has filed a  complaint to European Competition Commission on Vox Populi’s .SUCKS pricing strategy that had Brand owners charged $1,999 each year (wholesale) for a .SUCKS domain name compared to others that are charged just $10 According to NetNames.com which is a brand protection company representing many trademark holders, Vox Populi created an uneven pricing structure that effectively charges brands a premium fee irrespective of when they applied to register a .SUCKS new gTLD domain ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
This association thinks domain name investing violates U.S. law - Company’s response in WorkBetter.com lawsuit suggests that new businesses should be able to get old domain names. Last week I wrote about a cybersquatting lawsuit filed against the owner of WorkBetter.com. A new company has sprung up using the descriptive name Work Better, and it wants the 16-year-old .com domain name. Office Space Solutions asked the court for a temporary restraining order to prevent the domain’s owner, Jason Kneen, from transferring the domain name. Kneen filed a response, ... read more ...
Fri 3rd July 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
WorkBetter.com owners fights behind opposite ACPA lawsuit - Jason Kneen fights motion for preliminary injunction and points out plaintiff’s apparent shenanigans. Earlier this week I wrote about how New York company Office Space Solutions, Inc. had filed a cybersquatting lawsuit against Jason Kneen of the UK over the domain name WorkBetter.com. Kneen registered the domain name in 1999, well before Office Space Solutions had any idea of using the name in 2014. Office Space Solutions also asked for a preliminary injunction on the domain name. [Update 7/7/15: ... read more ...
Thu 2nd July 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Lens.com fails in cybersquatting censure over Lens.in - Lens.com not seeing so clearly. Online contact lens retailer Lens.com has failed to win a cybersquatting claim (pdf) against the domain name Lens.in. Lens.com filed the dispute under the .IN Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (INDRP). The panelist determined that Lens.com doesn’t have any rights in the term “lens”, just lens.com. That would not give it rights to Lens.in, and this caused the rest of the case to fail. INDRP is very similar to UDRP, except that the third element of use in bad ... read more ...
Wed 1st July 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sex.com Lawsuit: association final domain name over copyright and heading claims - Company demands ownership of Sex.com to settle claims of trademark and copyright infringement. Sex.com is one of the most valuable and storied domain names of all time. A battle over its ownership has resulted in multiple lawsuits, a fugitive hunt and millions of dollars in transactions. The domain name most recently sold for $13 million in 2010. Now a lawsuit is demanding transfer (pdf) of the ownership of the domain name based on copyright and trademark claims. Hydentra Hlp Int. Limited, dba MetArt, ... read more ...
Mon 29th June 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Spamming owners of newly purebred domain names - Just one example of spam based on whois records. We all know that people mine whois databases to sell stuff. It’s incredibly cheap and easy to do these days: compare the zone files, get the new registrations, and then run whois lookups. There are even people selling the entire .com whois database for a few hundred bucks. This makes it easy for people to spam new domain name registrants and sell them services they don’t need, like search engine submission. Last week I registered a handful of .com ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Cybersquatting lawsuit filed over domain name purebred 16 years before plaintiff's use - Office Space Solutions wants a domain name registered 16 years before it started using the corresponding term in commerce. It’s taking the legal route to get it. New York company Office Space Solutions, Inc. has filed a cybersquatting lawsuit (pdf) against Jason Kneen of Great Britain over the domain name WorkBetter.com. Office Space Solutions filed an intent-to-use trademark application for Work Better with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 2014. It began using the mark in commerce in February ... read more ...
Fri 26th June 2015
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Wirecard nailed for Reverse Domain Name Hijacking - Big payments company abused UDRP policy to try to get valuable domain name for cheap. Publicly traded payments company Wirecard AG has been found to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking over the domain name Boon.com. The company, which has a market capitalization of 4.37 billion euros, filed a UDRP after failing to acquire the domain name Boon.com for a future payments services brand. In its complaint, Wirecard mentioned that it has been around since 1999 and had 2013 turnover of about a ... read more ...
Tue 23rd June 2015
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Nominet (.UK) Release Domain Name Dispute Report For 2014 - Nominet, the nonprofit that  behind .UK, released its the annual summary of domain name disputes bought before its Dispute Resolution Service (DRS) which is similar to the UDRP system. A total of 726 complaints were made, up 8% on 2013. However, 2014 also saw a 51% increase in the number of cases where people were able to come to an agreement themselves and with the help of a Nominet mediator, without needing to appoint an expert to make the decision. 55% of cases resulted in the domain name being ... read more ...