Despite Comments From Domain RoundTable, Trademark Infringing Domains Are Not OK - As ICANN gathers this week for its meeting in San Francisco, the major issue will be once again be trademarks. Trademarks are the hot topic of discussion because of the new gTLD’s and the Government Advisory Council (GAC), which at the urging of trademark groups want additional protections for trademark holders, including the Uniform Rapid Suspension which will be a shorter quicker and less expensive method than UDRP to take domains away, and we all know how many horrible UDRP decision there are. With ... read more ...

Groupon Gets Irish Domain Name Groupon.ie - Groupon can move from CityDeal.ie to Groupon.ie. Group buying site Groupon has had some difficulty getting country code domains for “Groupon”, but it just picked up one through arbitration: Groupon.ie. .ie is the country code domain name for Ireland. The domain name should be transferred to Groupon within 21 days unless the domain’s current owner Digitalworx Limited files a lawsuit. Without the Groupon.ie domain name the company has been forced to use CityDeal.ie ... read more ...

What Would Happen if Employ Media Loses .Jobs? - A non-amicable transfer of the .jobs registry contract would be challenging. Last month ICANN surprised many observers by sending a breach notice to .jobs registry Employ Media. This was a shock because ICANN’s board had approved recent changes to how .jobs operates. The breach notice seems to attack some of those very changes that were contemplated by the board. But what exactly would happen if Employ Media lost .jobs? In theory the contract would just be awarded ... read more ...

ICANN Changes Schedule for Next Week’s Meeting - Meeting changed due to ongoing talks between ICANN and governments. Citing the need to hash out its differences with Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC), ICANN has changed the schedule for next week’s meeting in San Francisco: -ICANN will hold all day meetings with GAC on Tuesday and Thursday -There will be 5 1/2 hours of public comment sessions specifically devoted to new gTLDs. There will still be a two hour public comment period for other topics on Thursday. -The ... read more ...

Federal Court Once Again Upholds a Right Of A Competitor To Buy Keywords Under A Trademark - In another decision regarding trademark terms and keyword advertising, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday ruled against Advanced Systems Concepts, a company which sought an injunction to prevent a competitor, Network Automation from buying keywords under its brand name, ActiveBatch. The ruling reversed a decision by a lower U.S. District Court that had banned Network Automation from buy ads under the ActiveBatch keyword. The 9th Circuit court found that even if the text accompanying the ... read more ...

Berryhill Wins Another, As He Beats Back A UDRP On Crops.com - A three member UDRP panel held for the domain holder on a pure generic term, Crops.com despite numerous trademarks held by the complainant on the word “Crops“. The Complainant is Crop’s NV of Ooigem, Belgium. The Respondent is DigiMedia.com, L.P. who was represented by John Berryhill. Here are the relevant facts of the case: “The Complainant was established in 1948 and is doing business in the field of growing and freezing fruits and vegetables.. In 2008 through 2009, the Complainant achieved ... read more ...

Original CamRoulette.com Owner Tells His Story of Ups, Downs, and Up - Guy who originally registered CamRoulette.com tells his whole story. Craig Snyder (no affiliation with Oversee.net Craig Snyder) went through the wringer last year. He registered the domain name CamRoulette.com, which is similar to the (then) popular ChatRoulette.com. He sold it to Adam Strong for $1,200, only to see Strong flip the domain for $151,000. Snyder certainly had domain sales regret. But then it got worse. Someone else claimed to have agreed to buy the ... read more ...

Winner Of UDRP For UltimateGuitar.com Loses Bid For UltimateGuitars.com: “The Dividing Line Can Be Difficult To Draw.” - Another interesting, UDRP case decided today involved the domain name UltimateGuitars.com If you think this domain sounds familiar, like it was already subject to a UDRP, you’re close. The Complainant owns the domain ultimate-guitar.com and used the ownership of that domain, and a trademark on the very generic term to get the domain UltimateGuitar.com away from its owner (Domain Capital) in a UDRP on June 10, 2010. See Quester Group, Inc. v. Domain Capital, WIPO Case No. D2010-0594. At the time ... read more ...

ICANN Tells Governments Where it Stands - Chairman of ICANN Board sends email to GAC explaining where differences remain. Yesterday afternoon ICANN Chairman of the Board Peter Dengate Thrush sent an email to ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) summarizing where ICANN stands on GAC’s “scorecard” of issues. Dengate Thrush suggests that the consultation process can be resolved at the San Francisco meeting later this month: The Board looks forward to continuing to collaborate with the GAC in ... read more ...

Homeland Security Is Just Not Seizing Domains, But Is Now Arresting People - Over the last few months as you know Homeland Security, and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been seizing domains that they claim were either selling fake or knockoff goods, or engaged in the transmission of copyrighted  material (including the 84,000 innocent domains that were returned). Yesterday  ICE announced the first arrest. Bryan McCarthy 32 from Texas, was arrested and has been charged with criminal copyright infringement for “reproduction and distribution” ... read more ...

China Company: Apple Is Infringing On iPad Trademark & It’s Good Should Be Seized - According to Mondaq.com, a Chinese company, Proview Technology  Co., Ltd says that Apple is infringing on the name “ipad”. The company has demanded that Apple to stop its trademark infringement immediately, otherwise it would work with 8 creditor banks including Bank of China to ask relevant authorities to seize Apple’s infringing goods. Proview International claims it  registered a trademark for  “ipad” in the EU, China, Korea, Singapore, Indonesia and other countries from 2000 to 2004, ... read more ...

A Landmark Showdown during World Intellectual Property Organization - Case represents a big victory against radical UDRP ideology. A World Intellectual Property Forum panel handed down a UDRP decision on March 1 that could reverberate for a while and finally put to rest some recent shenanigans with UDRP. If you aren’t a UDRP junkie you may not appreciate it. But if you are, read on… The Background The case pitted Xbridge Limited v. Marchex Sales, Inc. over the domain name simplybusiness.com. Xbridge operates business insurance ... read more ...

.Sport Trademark Application Games Continue - One applicant for .sport TLD continues to try to get related trademarks. I guess trademarks are just like any other sport — a big game. dotSport LLC, which wants to run a .sport top level domain name, has been aggressive in its hunt for .sport related trademarks. It just filed another application for registry.sport. It filed the first one in January 2009 but it’s now abandoned. It filed another one in May 2010. In August 2010 the U.S. Patent and Trademark ... read more ...

You Can Become a Cybersquatter for Only $192,500 - Some Saturday afternoon cybersquatting humor for you. It takes guts to sell a trademarked domain name on such a public venue as eBay. So what do you call it if you try to sell an eBay trademark on eBay? One of my readers just sent a link to me for just such an auction. Yep, that’s right. Someone is trying to sell eBay.net.in on eBay. For only $192,500. I’ve pasted some of the auction description below with my own commentary in italics. ************ Today is ... read more ...

Never Start a Mainstream Web Site on a .Net Domain Name - This is what happens when you create a popular web site on something other than .com. You should never start a mainstream web site on a .net domain. Or .org, .biz, .info, etc. Unless you own the .com of the same name. Especially if the domain name you choose is generic. Unless you don’t care about losing traffic to the .com. OK, so why the rant? I just finished reading a UDRP case brought by First Showing, LLC, which owns FirstShowing.net. FirstShowing.net ... read more ...

Sex.com Investors Settle Their Differences - Investor in sex.com domain name’s former owner drops objection. After a deal was struck to sell Sex.com for $13 million last fall, investor Nuthin’ But Net filed a motion to set aside some of the proceeds because it disputed who should get them. Nuthin’ But Net accused investor Mike Mann of “self-dealing”. I estimate that about $2 million of the sale proceeds were set aside. But after some back-and-forth, it appears that the parties have come to an agreement. ... read more ...

ICANN Policies Are Biggest Issue Facing Domain Industry in 2011 - ICANN policy decisions cast cloud over domain name industry. A non-scientific survey of over 1,500 people in the domain name industry suggests that ICANN policy decisions represent the biggest issue facing their businesses in 2011. 30% of survey respondents cited ICANN decisions such as those affecting new TLDs and IDNs as the biggest issue facing the industry in 2011. The question was asked as part of the Sixth Annual Domain Name Wire Survey. Domain investors are ... read more ...

Chairman Of The IP Committee of a U.S. House Comes Out Swinging Against Leahy Bill - Over the weekend there was some good news out of Washington when Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va said about the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act: “We don’t want to be Egypt,” “Nor do we, when you talk about cybersecurity, a broader issue that goes beyond theft, that goes to the functioning of the internet itself, we don’t want to give government so much power that they have a kill switch, or something like that.” Rep Goodlatte said “he and his colleagues need to be ... read more ...

The Moody Blues Fight for MoodyBlues.com - Aging rock group wants .com equivalent of existing domain name. English rock group The Moody Blues have asked a World Intellectual Property Forum panel to give it the domain name MoodyBlues.com. The group’s official web site is MoodyBlues.co.uk. It has sold over 70 million albums worldwide since forming in the 1960s. Some of the aging group’s more popular songs are Nights in White Satin and Ride my See-Saw. MoodyBlues.com was registered way back in 1999, which ... read more ...