You Think Facebook Is Bad? Walgreens Sues Over The Letter “W’ - If you think Facebook.com has been overly aggressive in its defense of their trademark going against sites starting with the word “Face” or ending in the word “Book” you should see the lawsuit Walgreen’s just filed over the letter “W” This week, Walgreens filed suit against Wegmans Food Markets Inc., a New York-based supermarket chain over the letter “W.” According to the suit filed in Virgina , Walgreen says The “W” that Wegmans uses in its logo is too close to the style of ... read more ...

Lesson From National A-1: If Your Operating Sites You Should Consider Separating Them - Although it still does not appear that any charges have been filed out of the Feds raid on National A-1 offices a couple of weeks ago, that event does take me back to the basics, back to the time I practiced law. When I used to practice law and a client with an existing business came into my office with a new idea for a new business, one of the first things I would tell them is to seriously consider starting that new business in a separate entity, be it a corporation or LLC. The problem with operating ... read more ...

This One Won’t Be Going To Court: Schilling’s NameAdmin Wins A UDRP On SleepSack.com - Yesterday we posted about a that Name Administration settled a case it filed after it lost a UDRP on the domain name ChilliBeans.com Today comes a UDRP decision that Frank’s not going to have to appeal brought by Halo Innovations, Inc. on the domain name sleepsack.com. (SleepSack decision (word doc) There are some interesting cases cited by the opinion on other generic terms that had trademarks filed but which held in favor of the domain holder. Here are the relevant facts and findings of the three ... read more ...

After Trademark Threat, LameBook.com Files Preemptive Suit Against FaceBook.com - TechCrunch this morning is reporting that a site called LameBook filed for a declaratory judgment in its home state of Texas against Facebook.com asking the court to find it is not infringing on Facebook’s trademark. According to the story upon receiving communications from Facebook.com that it believed LameBook.com violated it trademark, instead of waiting for the federal lawsuit to come, Lamebook suited its own suit presumptively. Of course as domain holders we have the option of doing the exact ... read more ...

Frank Schilling Wins Another UDRP - Schilling wins another UDRP. Fresh off a legal victory stemming from a previous UDRP, Frank Schilling’s Name Administration has another UDRP victory to add to its collection. The company, with the help of domain name attorney John Berryhill, successfully defended a case brought by Halo Innovations, Inc. Halo Innovations has a product called SleepSack and brought the case over the SleepSack.com domain name. However, Name Administration was using the domain name ... read more ...

Win The Battle But Lose The War: ChilliBeans.com UDRP Still Sticks As A Loser & That’s The Problem - I got the same message from Frank’s Name Administration today that they settled a lawsuit stemming from the UDRP loss on the domain name ChilliBeans.com While like the other bloggers who wrote about this development, I’m happy to see that justice was done,  that the winner of the UDRP settled with the domain holder, but the bigger picture is that the lawsuit and settlement does nothing to change the record. The UDRP was lost by the domain holder. Been there and done that. So while its great ... read more ...

Porn Pirates They’re Coming After All 7,100 Of You & Limewire.com is Shut Down - Some of these torrent sites are the most visited on the net but that looks more every day that their days are numbered. Just last week a federal judge ordered the file sharing site, LimeWire.com to basically shut down. U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood issued an injunction ordering LimeWire to disable the “the searching, downloading, uploading, file trading and/or file distribution functionality, and/or all functionality” of the famed file-sharing program. If you go to LimeWire.com today, ... read more ...

Role of Registries will Change with New Top Level Domain Names - Role of registries shifting as new TLDs are introduced, likely in 2012. The traditional role of a registry has been the technical coordination of top level domain names. In fact, many registries have deliberately not looked at themselves as promoters of their TLDs, and only technical service providers. That has changed a bit over the past few years as registries realized it takes more than putting a domain out there to get a good customer base. And it’s about ... read more ...

Business Constituency and ICA Say No to New UDRP Providers - Groups want moratorium on new UDRP providers until ICANN gets handle on them. Both the ICANN Business Constituency and the Internet Commerce Association have asked ICANN to reject any applications from new UDRP providers until “ICANN implements a standard mechanism for establishing uniform rules and procedures and flexible means of delineating and enforcing arbitration provider responsibilities.” The comments are in response to an application by Arab Center for ... read more ...

Hogwarts School Gets Its Own Domain Name - Warner Bros. wins domain name dispute for Hogwarts.com. Children and dreamers interested in attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry from the Harry Potter series will soon be able to find it more easily on the web — Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. has just been awarded the domain name Hogwarts.com through a UDRP. Warner Bros. has rights dating from June 1, 1998 in which author J.K. Rowling granted and assigned to it rights in all four books in the Harry ... read more ...

Embattled ICANN Ombudsman Leaving - Frank Fowlie to leave ICANN role. ICANN Ombudsman Frank Fowlie has announced he will leave his post no later than January 31 of next year. In a statement posted to the ICANN web site today, Fowlie said “After six years with ICANN, I have logged 794 days in travel status, or about two years and five months away from home. It’s time for me to spend a bit more time at home with my wonderful wife.” The statement is vague about whether Fowlie is leaving on his own ... read more ...

National A-1 Raided By The FBI & Other Law Enforcement - As reported by Elliotsblog.com, AVN.com and Xbiznewswire.com, the offices of National A-1 located in Philadelphia, were raided today by  “more than 100 law enforcement agents from the FBI and local police.” National A-1 operates some adult sites, including HotMovies.com and GayMovies.com. According to the articles, “the FBI agents were armed with search warrants and more than 100 employees were detained and later released” However let me remind everyone that its still innocent until proven ... read more ...

Is Comcast A Cybersquatter? A Law Suit Says Yes: The Case Of Fancast.com - A company Fancaster, Inc. sued Comcast (which has agreed to buy NBC, awaiting regulatory approval) in federal court in New Jersey back in 2008 over the domain Fancast.com under the  Lanham Act, for trademark infringement, false designation of origin and unfair competition, trade name infringement and cybersquatting. A court hearing was held yesterday on the case where the court granted the Plaintiff’s motion to amend their complaint, to seek damages for FanCast.com VOD product which seems to have ... read more ...

SnapNames/Oversee.net Settles Class Action & Case With Brady - Oversee.net  just announced that it has settled two outstanding cases from the Brady Bidding Scandal. One was a class action bought by some of the bidders on the SnapNames.com system that were effected by Brady’s bidding. The other case settled today was the action that Oversee brought against Brady seeking $33 Million dollars. For our own account at SnapNames.com we took our settlement in January of this year, having satisfied ourselves that the Brady acted alone, that Oversee’s accounting ... read more ...

US Trademark Office Wants Your Comments on Trademark Bullying - The US trademark office has opened up a comment period and wants feedback on Trademark Bullying: We all know of cases where trademark owners have tried to use their trademark to get domains that are well beyond their trademarks  and/or use scare tactics and other questionable practices in attempting to get domains away from their owners. Here are the details including information on how you can get your opinion heard on this very important issue to domain holders: “”The Trademark Technical and ... read more ...

Conroy Disses .XXX - Controversial Australian Senator urges further review of .xxx top level domain name. Australian Senator and Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Stephen Conroy has written a letter to ICANN denouncing plans to introduce a .xxx top level domain name. In the letter (pdf), Conroy argues against the introduction of .xxx because “of the lack of identified public benefit”. Conroy says the the board should consult the Governmental Advisory ... read more ...