Tag Archives: legal

Tue 1st February 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
US Wants To Make Loser Pay For All Costs & Domain Transferred Under New Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS): ICA Responds - On last Friday, January 28th the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) submitted a paper  to ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee containing its suggestions for what position the GAC should push for at its February 28 – March 1 meeting with ICANN’s Board. According to the letter the U.S. wants the GAC to ask ICANN to make the Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) into a “loser pays” system. The DOC also wants ICANN to give  trademark holders the right get the domain names transferred to them ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ClickBank Files Complaint to Get Clickbank.co - Popular payment processor and affiliate company files complaint to get .co equivalent of its .com domain. Add Click Sales, Inc, the company behind popular information products payment processor and affiliate network Clickbank, to the list of companies filing UDRP cases to get their .co domain name. The company filed a complaint with World Intellectual Property Forum to get Clickbank.co. The domain name is currently registered by someone in China and parked at Sedo. ... read more ...
Mon 31st January 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Person Files UDRP Against New Domain Owner After Letting Domain Expire - Former owner of domain claims cybersquatting after letting domain registration lapse. Imagine that a domain name expires and you pick it up in an expired domain auction. Then the previous owner files a UDRP against you claiming cybersquatting to get the domain name back. I’ve seen a few cases like this, including one just decided for PitRoad.com. In this case the complainant had a registered trademark for PitRoad.com*, which could have been harmful to the respondent. ... read more ...
Sun 30th January 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
IndianOil.Org Lost In A WIPO Decision: Is IndianOil.com Next? - The domain name Indianoil.org was award to Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) in a WIPO decision . The decision seems to be unpublished but in a story appearing in  the hindustantimes.com, it appears a one member panel concluded that: “IOC has the exclusive right to use the domain name as it is a well-known company.” The trademark, ‘INDIAN OIL’, registered in 1986, while the domain holder registered the domain in 2005. The domain holder apparently did not file a response to the complaint. Of ... read more ...
Sat 29th January 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
We Should Find Out Next Week If UDRP Reform Is Coming: ICA Corwin Reacts - Next week on February 3 the GNSO (General Names Supporting Organization) of ICANN will take a vote on a motion that will determine whether ICANN will consider UDRP reform. The motion up for vote includes the following: “”RESOLVED #2, the GNSO Council requests an Issues Report on the current state of the UDRP. This effort should consider: How the UDRP has addressed the problem of cybersquatting to date, and any insufficiencies/inequalities associated with the process. Whether the definition of ... read more ...
Thu 27th January 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN Briefing Documents Still Full of Redactions - by Kevin Murphy ICANN continues to hide details of staff briefings to Board. ICANN is continuing to redact large portions of its board briefing documents, despite the recommendations of its Accountability and Transparency Review team. The organization has just published over 300 pages of documentation that was used to inform its board of directors before its meeting in Cartagena last month. But large chunks of text have been whited out. Many of the redacted portions ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Apparently WeWannaBuyYourCar.com is Confusingly Similar to “We Buy Any Car” - I need a crash course in confusing similarity. I don’t know, folks. Maybe it’s time for me to pack it up and go home. Why the frustration? After reading hundreds of UDRP cases apparently I still can’t figure out what “confusingly similar” is. Today’s case in point? WIPO panelist David Perkins has awarded the domain name WeWannaBuyYourCar.com to a company with trademarked logos for “We Buy Any Car.com”. OK, so ‘we’, ‘buy’, and ‘car’ ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New TLD Guidebook May Be Approved in Mar After All - New TLD supporters received good news today. After what seemed like disappointing news last week, now things are looking up for potential new top level domain name applicants. ICANN just released resolutions from its board meeting on January 25 and they indicate that ICANN plans to go forward with approving the applicant guidebook during the March meeting in San Francisco. The group plans to “trigger the Bylaws mandated consultation” with the Governmental Advisory ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
India Gets 7 IDN County Code Domain Names - India gets seven IDN ccTLDS and more good news for IDN domain name supporters. One thing I learned on my trip to India earlier this month is that there are a lot of local languages. This week ICANN approved delegation of seven (yes, seven) internationalized county code domain names to National Internet Exchange of India. The delegated ccTLDs include भारत (“Bharat”), encoded as “xn--h2brj9c”; بھارت “Bharat”), encoded ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Numeric Only Domains Coming to .Tel - 777.tel on its way. Soon you’ll be able to register .tel domain names existing solely of two or more digits. This week ICANN’s Board of Directors agreed to amend its registry agreement with Telnic to allow for the numeric domain names. Telnic requested the change through the Registry Service Evaluation Policy (RSEP) process, which opened up the proposal to public comments. Go Daddy filed comments opposed to Telnic’s plan. The registrar argued that the change ... read more ...
Wed 26th January 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
UDRP row Awards KENA.com & The Domain Name Owner Is Loses His $5K Purchase: “It Cannot Be Accounted For By Genericness” - In domain holder that paid over $5,000 for a LLLL.com today just lost it in a UDRP The case involved the domain name  kena.com There have been some nice sales of LLLL.com just at Afternic recently recently making this a pretty valuable domain the right hands. Here is what the one member panel had to say: “Complainant has registered several KENA-formative trademarks on the register of the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property These are a word and design mark KENA LATINA (and design), registration ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
USPTO Grants Extension to Facebook in Fight with American Farm Bureau over FB - Facebook still embroiled in fight over ‘FB’ mark with non-profit that sold it FB.com domain name. So you bought a domain name from someone for $8 million plus and you still haven’t settled a trademark dispute with them? Makes no sense to me. But on Monday Facebook filed an extension request with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to settle a trademark dispute with American Farm Bureau (AFB). The request said the parties are still engaged in settlement talks. AFB ... read more ...
Tue 25th January 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
The Perils of Working With ICANN - Business models dependent on ICANN are risky. If the new top level domain name process and .xxx are any indication, staking an entire business model on something that must work its way through the ICANN process requires unending patience and a strong appetite for risk. New top level domain names haven’t even been approved yet, but we’ve already seen layoffs in the new TLD business. Companies that sprung up to launch new TLDs have had to cut back to lower their ... read more ...
Mon 24th January 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Zynga Owner of Cityville and Farmville is Now Trying to Enforce Ownership Of a “Ville” - Looks like the game developer Zynga who owns CityVille and FarmVille is going down the same path of Facebook which has attempted to claim that they have ownership of the word Face and/or Book. In November of 2010, Zynga sent a cease and desist letter to the developer of the game Blingville, claiming its use of the letter combination ‘ville’ entails trademark infringement. Last week, Blingville filed for a declaratory judgement stating that its game’s title constituted a “fair use” ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Judge Shuts Down Zuccarini Fight Against NameJet, NetSol, and VeriSign - Judge calls for an end to lengthy domain name battle. United States District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema has said enough is enough in a domain name lawsuit filed by John Zuccarini. Zuccarini filed the lawsuit after a court appointed receiver failed to renew domain names of his that were seized to settle a cybersquatting judgment. The domain names were at Network Solutions and subsequently auctioned off on NameJet when they expired. One of the domain names was bid up ... read more ...
Sun 23rd January 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Judge Issues Rulings in Lawsuit Over Women.com - Both sides in case have something to be happy (and upset) about after judge issues rulings on motions. A federal district judge has denied motions by both the plaintiff and the defendant in a lawsuit over the failed sale of Women.com. Done! Ventures says it made a $1 million offer for Women.com and Women.net via Sedo that was accepted by NBC Universal. After NBC Universal allegedly backed out of the deal, Done! Ventures filed a lawsuit to force the company to complete ... read more ...
Sat 22nd January 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
New Top Level Domain Timeline Takes Another Hit - More delays likely to handle GAC issues. ICANN has released details about its upcoming meeting with the Governmental Advisory Committee regarding new top level domain names. Although the meeting will take place ahead of the ICANN meeting in San Francisco this March, the February 28-March 1 get together does not appear to be the final meeting between the two on the matter. As Kevin Murphy points out, ICANN’s release about the meeting states “This meeting is not ... read more ...
Thu 20th January 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
“Purely Descriptive, Commonly Used” Generic Domain, PokerStrategy.co Taken In UDRP - A one member UDRP panel awarded the generic domain name PokerStrategy.co was awarded to the holder of the .com despite the one member panel finding the term Poker Strategy was a “”Purely Descriptive, Commonly Used” term. This decision should be particularly troubling to .Co domain owners as the language in the decision seems to indicate that any .Co maybe in jeopardy if the .Com domain holder files a UDRP. In this case the domain was not parked but was directed to another one of its other gambling ... read more ...
Wed 19th January 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Is “Rip-Off Report” a Same as “Report a Rip Off”? One UDRP Panelist Thinks So. - The never ending stretch of confusing similarity. National Arbitration Forum panelist Jonas Gulliksson has determined that the “Report a rip off” is confusingly similar to “Rip-Off Report”, and has ordered ReportaRipoff.net transferred to the owner of RipoffReport.com. Now, if what the complainant in this case states is true, it’s clear that the registrant of ReportaRipoff.net crossed some bounds that were sure to land him in hot water. But I have a hard ... read more ...
Tue 18th January 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
WIPO Panel Takes Away Demand Media’s PEP.mobi domain name - Demand Media’s Demand Domains loses three letter .mobi domain name. World Intellectual Property Organization panelist Warwick A. Rothnie has awarded Demand Media’s PEP.mobi domain name to South African retailer Pepkor. Rothnie determined that the three letter generic domain name was registered in bad faith to target Pepkor’s “pep” mark because some of the ads on the parked pep.mobi page lead to ads targeted to South Africa — not necessarily because of ... read more ...
Mon 17th January 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
WTR: Trademark Owners Plan to A Big Push For More Protection Before ICANN Mar Meeting - According to the WorldTrademarkReview.com, trademark holders are planning on making a big push for more protections for them and less rights for domain name holders during the ICANN board meets with the Government Advisory Council (GAC) next month before the ICANN March meeting in SF. The GAC is an ICANN advisory group made up of representatives from many governments. As we reported from the ICANN Colombia meeting, the Government representatives which apparently were heavily and effective lobbied ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
WIPO Panel Hands Over VAX.com Domain Name - Three letter domain won through UDRP. World Intellectual Property Organization panelist J. Nelson Landry has ordered the VAX.com domain name be transferred to floor care products company Vax Limited. Landry noted that the term VAX was a “coined term”, and didn’t consider the potential that it was a generic acronym. That said, the respondent didn’t do himself any favors. Not only did he fail to respond to the proceedings, but he’s also lost 11 UDRP decisions ... read more ...
Fri 14th January 2011
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
RightHaven Is Now Coming After Comment Posters Not Just Websites - According to the LasVegasSun.com “the copyright enforcement company Righthaven LLC is now suing individual message-board posters, not just website operators.” According to the story “Righthaven filed seven infringement lawsuits Tuesday and Wednesday in U.S. District Court for Nevada, lifting its lawsuit total since March to at least 203.” “Among the defendants sued Monday were message board posters identified as James Higgins and Wayne Hoehn.” “Higgins, according to Righthaven, posts ... read more ...
Wed 12th January 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
WowWhatSavings.com Goes After AOL’s Wow.com in Lawsuit - Site owner says AOL’s wow.com is confusing his users. Late last year AOL converted its WOW.com domain name from a World of Warcraft site to a daily deals site similar to Groupon. Now the owner of daily deals site WowWhatSavings.com is crying foul in a lawsuit (pdf). WowWhatSavings.com owner Todd Rideman says his deals site has been known as “WoW” to its users. Once AOL launched Wow.com, confusion ensued. He provides an affidavit from a Boston restaurant that ... read more ...
Tue 11th January 2011
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
123Inkjets.com Typo Cases Show More UDRP Inconsistency - Two different UDRP panelists reach the exact same conclusions, yet they differ from most previous decisions. A pair of cases by one of National Arbitration Forum’s most prolific arbitrators, John Upchurch, show continued inconsistencies in UDRP disputes and some other very odd coincidences. Upchurch ruled against 123Inkjets.com owner LD Products, Inc for the domain names 123inkjsts.com and 1238nkjets.com. In both cases Upchurch decided that LD Products did not ... read more ...