Tag Archives: legal

Sat 23rd October 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
FaceBook.com Sues FacePorn.com - According to ComputerWorld.com, Facebook filed suit on October 15th today against Faceporn.com, alleging  the site essentially copied Facebook to build an adult social networking platform “Until recently, Faceporn billed itself as “the number one socializing porn and sex network,” offering a range of pornographic content. However it now says it’s offline for a redesign. “We’re currently working to launch a completely new version of the site, and it will be the best porn site the ... read more ...
Thu 21st October 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Shareholder Of Bible.com Sues For “Lack Of Profit”: Is Bible.com Worth $100 Million Dollars? - In  a unusual case, James Solakian a shareholder who owns 28% of Bible.com filed suit against the board directors of the company alleging breach of their fiduciary duty by refusing to sell the site or run the company in a profitable way and for “failing to profit from the goldmine potential of the domain name”. “The lawsuit cites a valuation done by a potential purchaser that estimated bible.com could be worth more than dictionary.com, which recently sold for more than $100 million.” The ... read more ...
Wed 20th October 2010
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BizFilings Loses Domain Dispute When Dates Don’t Add Up - Online business formation company loses arbitration case. Business Filings Incorporated, which offers business filing services at BizFilings.com, has lost a domain name dispute over BizFiling.com (singular version). The company registered BizFilings.com back in 1996, but for many years used the brand “Business Filings Incorporated” on its web site. It filed an intent-to-use trademark in 2000 for BizFilings, which was refused a couple years later. Then in 2008 ... read more ...
Mon 18th October 2010
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Cliff Stearns (R-FL) Addresses TRAFFIC Conference - Congressman addresses domain conference in Miami, Florida. Representative Cliff Stearns (R-FL) addressed the TRAFFIC domain conference this afternoon. About 75 people were in attendance during Stearns’ fireside chat with show organizer Howard Neu. Stearns was joined by retired Congressman Mike Ferguson. Stearns is a member of the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet, and Ferguson was on this subcommittee while he served. Stearns said there ... read more ...
Sat 16th October 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
TheHill.com Covers Stearns’ Visit to TRAFFIC Plus Domain Lobbying - Influential political web site discusses domain name industry involvement in politics. The popular political site TheHill.com — which gets well over a million unique visitors a month — has published a post about Rep. Cliff Stearns’ (R-Fla.) visit to the TRAFFIC conference in Florida next week. The story mentions the types of people that will attend next week’s conference (including an optimistic 500+ attendee figure), as well as Stearns’ political ambitions. The ... read more ...
Thu 14th October 2010
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Vertical Axis Beats Back WIPO Challenge on BabyEssentials.com Despite 8 Trademarks & A Parked Page - Vertical Axis Inc beat back a challenge, from a trademark holder to successfully defend a UDRP on BabyEssentials.com. Its an impressive win since the complainant seems to have mulitple trademarks on the term in several different classes and the domain name was parked. Here are the fact of the case as laid out by the 3 member panel: “The Complainant describes itself as a source of well-designed and priced products supplied to mass-merchandising retailers in the United States of America (“United ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
AOL Owns Patch.com, But Can’t Win wwwPatch.com UDRP - AOL’s lawyers didn’t provide enough evidence of common law rights. AOL owns the web site Patch.com, yet it has failed to obtain the typo wwwPatch.com through a National Arbitration Forum proceeding. How is this possible? It seems that AOL’s lawyers may have taken this case for granted and not supplied enough evidence. The panel found that wwwPatch.com is confusingly similar to AOL’s PATCH mark, and that the respondent doesn’t have any rights or legitimate ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
LMC.com Domain Dispute Will Have You ROFLMAO - Some of the dumbest logic you’ll ever read in a UDRP. A recent UDRP complaint brought by FTR of Bondues, France is so misguided that I have to use a juvenile messaging acronym to describe it. Yes, when you read FTR’s logic, you’ll be ROFLMAO. FTR is a holding company that owns a number of subsidiaries, and also a trademark for LMC. It appears to be in the business of selling kitchen cabinets, light fixtures, and window coverings. The respondent is Synopsys, ... read more ...
Wed 13th October 2010
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Nominet Takes .Co.Uk Gripe Site Domain Away, Gives It To The Trademark Holder But The Site Is Relaunched Hours Later As A .Org - Nominet is the registry for the .co.uk,  ccTLD. Nominet has its own procedures to arbitrate disputes between domain holders and trademark holders. In a 22 page decision today, Nominet awarded a domain name used primarily as a gripe site against Ryan Air, a huge carrier in Eurpoe. Robert Tyler, A disgruntled passenger set up a website called IHateRyanair.co.uk  “to share travel “horror stories” was ordered to hand over the domain name to the low-cost airline he hates. On the website Mr. Tyler ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
You Probably Shouldn’t Brag About Registering a Trademark Domain Name - This isn’t a very smart thing to do. If you’re going to register a domain name including a famous trademark, you probably shouldn’t brag about it. Like this guy did [update: removed link. Guy took post down. He also has a new post up that says “I recently decided it was time to migrate my personal blog away from this business as my view points at times can be a bit controversial.”] after registering Starbucks.im. I recently picked up a few good .im ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Ca Tops 1.5 Million Domains and Gets EPP - CIRA transitions registry system and hits a milestone. Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) has had a big week. First, it transitioned its entire registry system to EPP. That’s welcome news for registrars carrying .ca, and it alleviates a lot of burdens on CIRA: With the new system and policies, CIRA is effectively able to remove itself from many day-to-day transactions. Most transactions will be handled solely by CIRA certified Registrars. To ensure ... read more ...
Tue 12th October 2010
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Generic Domain Taken In A WIPO Without A Trademark: ErgonomicDesigns.com - Well last week domain holders got 2 nice WIPO decisions but as we all know how inconsistent these decisions can be. Today come’s a sole panelist decision awarding a Generic domain name to a company that doesn’t even hold a trademark. The domain at issue is ErgonomicDesigns.com Here are the relevant facts as laid out by the panel: The Complainant is a company concerned with the selling of shower and bathroom faucets, much of which business is conducted over the Internet through its website “www.ergonomicdesigns.co.uk”. The ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
CitizenHawk Nailed For Reverse Domain Hijacking, Chastised by Panelist - Typo recovery company embarrassed by TinyPrint.com case. For the second time, cybersquatting recovery company CitizenHawk has been chastised by a UDRP panelist for submitting a boilerplate complaint. This time the panelist threw in an added bonus, finding the company’s complainant guilty of reverse domain hijacking. CitizenHawk filed a complaint on behalf of Tiny Prints, Inc. for the domain name TinyPrint.com. Before discussing the merits of the case, panelist ... read more ...
Mon 11th October 2010
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Microsoft Files Cybersquatting Lawsuit Over Bing Domain Names - Microsoft goes after Bing cybersquatters. Microsoft has filed a lawsuit (pdf) against a California man and several John Does over their registration of domain names containing the “Bing” mark. The suit lists 21 allegedly infringing domain names ranging from aolbing.com to BingPornTube.com to Bing-Search.com. Microsoft says that over 1,500 domain names containing “bing” were registered each month in the two months following the announcement of its search ... read more ...
Fri 8th October 2010
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WIPO Panel Finds Bad Faith Must Exist At The Time Of Registration - A WIPO case decided today had some good language concerning the issue of “bad faith” for purposes of UDRP’s. Although the facts of this particular case will be of little interest to domain holders as it involved parties that had a history together, the decision contains language helpful to domain holders. When I comes to bad faith there is a divergence between panelists, which of course is not helpful since its one of the basic elements and findings on which these decisions turn. One set of ... read more ...
 
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
CollegeNet Sues Google Over SpeedBook But Neither Has The Domain - According to TechEye.net, an Oregon company,  CollegeNet filed suit against Google, alleging that they infringed on its trademark of the term “Speedbook”. “The lawsuit, claims that Google has filed for a trademark of the same term, which is an infringement of CollegeNET’s trademark, and that due to Google’s stature in the industry this will cause significant harm to CollegeNET’s business.” “CollegeNET says that if Google uses the name, which is rumoured to be for a Google ... read more ...
Thu 7th October 2010
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ParkingSpa.com Wins UDRP on Thea.Com/Net Despite Trademark & Being Parked - Parking Spa and legendary domainer igal won a three person WIPO panel decision today on the domain names Thea.com Thea.net. The decision is a good one for domainers since the Complainant is a big corporation with trademark on the term Thea, and the domains were going to a parked page advertising adult dating sites. The panel the parked pages to be “a bona fide offering of goods or services”. Here are the highlights of the decisions: “The Complainant is the owner of a registered trademark in ... read more ...
Wed 6th October 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
According to SeattlePi.Com Microsoft Files 3 Separate Suit For Bing Cybersquatting - According to SeattlePI.com Microsoft has filed three lawsuits in the past two weeks against people registering domain names using the Bing trademark. All the 3 cases, were filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. According to the article many of the domain subject to the suits either redirected to PPC pages, to non-resolving sites or registrar placeholders. Microsoft apparently doesn’t care if the page goes to PPC, doesn’t resolve or goes to a Godaddy place holder. If ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Libya Shuts Down .ly Link Shortener - A .ly link shortening service is seized. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: building a web business on a country code domain name carries big risks. Not all country codes, but some. Consider country code domains for countries that like to censor the web. Here’s a prime example: a link shortening service for adult sites has been shut down by Libya. Yep, the same Libya ccTLD that bit.ly runs on. The .ly domain in particular has lots or risk. Could Libya ... read more ...
Tue 5th October 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Another Domain Theft: UDRP On Prince.com Filed With Owner Alleging The Domain Was Stolen - The former owner of the domain name Prince.com, Andrew Prince has filed a UDRP on the domain, claiming the domain which was sold by Mediaoptions.com for $235,000 in August was stolen. The domain is currently at Moniker.com showing the buyers whois info but is locked by the registry so the respondent of the UDRP (as it is referred to below)  is Moniker.com This follows on the story of Chris Hartnett who was the victim of identity theft we wrote about yesterday. Matter of fact in his telling of his ... read more ...
Fri 1st October 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Miss Universe Goes After Sex Tape Domain Names - Miss Universe turns to arbitration to take down web sites. Miss Universe L.P. has filed complaints with World Intellectual Property Forum in an effort to gain control of two web site promoting sex videos. One complaint was filed against missuniversesexvideo.com (warning: explicit), a web site that indicates it has video from a sex tape scandal that broke last year. (Did I really just link to TMZ?) The other complaint was filed against missusasex.com, which seems ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Pamela Anderson Gets Another Domain from Alberta Hot Rods - Pamela Anderson beats an old foe to get domain name. Pamela Anderson has won a case for the domain name PamAnderson.com in an arbitration case at World Intellectual Property Forum. The case was brought against Alberta Hot Rods, a group that had a run in with Anderson back in 2002. In the 2002 WIPO case Anderson won the domain names PamelaAnderson.com, PamelaAnderson.net, and PamelaLee.com. What’s somewhat strange is how Anderson didn’t go after the PamAnderson.com ... read more ...
Thu 30th September 2010
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VeriSign Abandons Plans for 1 and 2 Character .Net Domains - Short .net domain name idea off the table. VeriSign has withdrawn its request to ICANN to allow it to release one and two character .net domain names. The company asked ICANN back in August to let it auction off any one or two letter .net domain name that wasn’t already registered. Some one and two letter domains were registered prior to a restriction on the practice that was introduced for technical reasons. A number of other registries have either already distributed ... read more ...
Wed 29th September 2010
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ICANN May Test Whois Privacy and Proxy Services - How do whois privacy services respond to requests to reveal owner information? The Generic Names Supporting Organization (GNSO) has asked ICANN to consider the cost and feasibility of extended whois studies. ICANN has already undertaken studies to determine what percentage of whois records are accurate. The next study is to see how whois privacy and whois proxy services respond to requests to reveal the actual owner of domain names. The study would involve working ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
The Gap Sues GapNote.com Social Network - Clothing company says you can’t use the term “gap” in your social media web site. Clothing company The Gap has sued GapNote.com and its founder for trademark infringement. GapNote.com is a new site that helps people chronicle their past, present, and future, and the gaps in between. The lawsuit claims that the site should not be able to use the term “gap” anywhere in its name because the clothing company owns rights to the domain name. The Gap claims: Defendant ... read more ...