Tag Archives: legal

Mon 30th August 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Muscovitch: Canadian ccTLD Registry Rules in Need of an Overhaul - by Zak Muscovitch [In this guest article, Zak Muscovitch argues that the .ca domain name needs to be liberalized. Muscovitch is a domain attorney who is running for a seat on CIRA’s 2010 Board of Directors. -Andrew] While many countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany, and India, have opened up their ccTLD registries to foreigners, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (“CIRA”) has been stuck with the same closed-door policy since it enacted ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Court Wants Explanation for Conflict of Interest over TRAFFIC Auction - Court asks for explanation, but it’s probably a moot point anyway. United States District Judge Susan Illston has asked DS Holdings and The United States to file a response to accusations that auctioning off domains previously held by John Zuccarini at a TRAFFIC auction would be a conflict of interest. Zuccarini complained to the court that this would be a conflict of interest since TRAFFIC co-organizer Howard Neu once represented him in the cybersquatting lawsuit ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Lawsuit Against Original CamRoulette.com Owner Settled - Case dropped pending settlement. A lawsuit filed against the original registrant of CamRoulette.com has been settled. Craig Snyder (not related to the Oversee.net employee) originally registered CamRoulette.com and sold it for $1,200. But another person, Fraser Brown, said he had already agreed to purchase the domain name from Snyder for $700 before Snyder sold it to the other party for $1,200. It likely wouldn’t have bothered anyone if it weren’t for the domain ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Michael Phelps Foundation Sues Over Domain Name - Swimmer’s foundation goes after domain name owner. The non-profit Michael Phelps Foundation, established by the Olympic swimmer, has sued to get the domain name MichaelPhelpsFoundation.com. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Maine, names Domains by Proxy, Inc., a domain whois proxy service, and Does 1-10 as defendants. It is typical for a proxy service to be named in a lawsuit and it is typically dropped once the proxy service transfers the domain back to ... read more ...
Fri 27th August 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
The Little Guy Wins One As WIPO Allows Him To Keep His Family Name Despite Trademark - In a WIPO decision handed down today, the sole panelist found that Bob Pflueger could keep this family domain, Pflueger.com despite the fact that the complaint held a trademark on this term since 1908. Here are the edited facts and highlights of  the decision: “The PFLUEGER marks and trade name have achieved widespread recognition and secondary meaning as a result of Complainant’s extensive advertising and promotion. In the years 2006, 2007 and 2008, Complainant spent USD 1.3 million, USD ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
White House Wants to Meet with Registrars and ICANN Over Counterfeit Drugs - Obama administration wants to address illegal online pharmacies. The White House has called for a meeting with domain name registrars, registries, and ICANN to discuss rouge online pharmacies. According to an email obtained by Krebs on Security, White House Senior Adviser for Intellectual Property Enforcement Andrew J. Klein sent a letter earlier this month urging companies to send a representative to a meeting on September 29. A number of advocacy groups have called ... read more ...
Wed 25th August 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Panelists Hears WIPO Case Even Though He Worked At The Law Firm Representing The Trademark Holder: No Conflict Of Interest? - If you have ever spent one day in law school you would learn that in the court system, judges are not allowed to hear cases in which they have any type of interest and certainly not in cases involving former clients. However in the UDRP/WIPO world that doesn’t seem to be a problem for panelists to decide cases, even if they used to work for one of the parties. Take the case of cloro.com which was the subject of a WIPO decision handed down today. The complaint was brought Clorox It was decided by ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
VirtualExpo.com Virtually Reverse Hijacked - French company guilty of reverse domain name hijacking for VirtualExpo.com. A French company has been found to have attempted reverse domain name hijacking of the domain VirtualExpo.com. M. Corentin Benoit Thiercelin, who claims to run a company called VirtualExpo, filed the complaint with WIPO to get the domain name. The domain was registered in 1996, well before the complainant filed trademarks on the name. The earliest of the trademarks was registered in 2005. The ... read more ...
Mon 23rd August 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Catching Up with The Internet Commerce Association - by Philip S. Corwin, Counsel, Internet Commerce Association [Asking a lawyer to keep a guest post to 600 words or less is impossible. So Phil Corwin’s ICA update is a bit longer. But it’s a great update, and it’s good to know that ICA is still working for you. -Andrew] Thanks to Andrew for this opportunity to blog about what ICA has been up to so far this year – while he takes a well-deserved vacation. Domain Name Wire is an indispensable resource for anyone ... read more ...
Fri 20th August 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
No Grand Theft Domain: Take-Two Interactive Loses Battle over BioShock.com - Video game publisher loses arbitration for BioShock.com domain name. Take-Two Interactive Software, publishers of the Grand Theft Auto series and BioShock, have lost a domain name arbitration case to get the domain name BioShock.com. Take-Two filed for a trademark on BioShock back in 2005 on an intent-to-use basis, and first used the mark in commerce in 2007 according to USPTO filings. But the company claimed there was online chatter about the release of a new game ... read more ...
Wed 18th August 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
UDRP Takes Away Another Domain Based On A “Common Law” Trademark - In a WIPO decision, today a domain was take based off a comon law trademark Although the domain was parked none of the results on the landing page went to the complainant or any competitors of the complaint, rather the links on the landking page were completely unrelated to the business of the complaintant. The domain in question was DimFusion.com The facts are as follows: The Complainant is a French company in business in the manufacture and supply of articles of clothing, including underwear.’ “The ... read more ...
Tue 17th August 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Company Wants Trademark for .Secure - I am assuming that you are referring to the .MUSIC trademarks and brand equity that we have created and will be expanding upon in the next few months. I think you were comparing apples with oranges here (.secure vs .MUSIC). We have just launched the second installation of our outreach campaign for communicating to the music industry and artists about .MUSIC and how we will help the music industry with our platform and innovations. We will be sponsoring, participating and be actively ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Intriguing: An Escort With Your Domain Registration? - A new business model or just a mistaken trademark application? A Chinese company has filed a trademark application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for: Which the applicant says is equivalent to Sai Bo Na, which has no meaning. But its the classes of service for the registration that has me scratching my head: G S: Copyright management; Domain name registration services; Escort services; Intellectual property consultation; Intellectual property watch services; ... read more ...
Mon 16th August 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
IS God Squad Too Close To Geek Squad? Best Buy Thinks So & Is Suing A Priest Over It - According to the Milwaukee Journal, Best Buy has no love for the God Squad and is suing them for infringing on their trademark for the Geek Squad, even though the user of God Squad is a priest. Father Luke Strand received a cease-and-desist letter about his car, a Volkswagen Beetle has oval door stickers that read “God Squad” . “Paula Baldwin, senior manager for public relations at Best Buy, said the company aggressively defends its trademarks and notified Strand “because of the unfortunate ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Paris Hilton Upset About Cybersquatters - Hotel heiress asks WIPO for help getting domain names. Paris Hilton has filed two separate arbitration cases at World Intellectual Property Organization to get control of domain names that include her name. The first case was filed by Paris Hilton Entertainment, Inc. on August 12 to get the domain name paris-hilton-perfume.net. The domain name currently does not resolve. The owner of this domain name may have already capitulated, as the case has been dropped. However, ... read more ...
Sat 14th August 2010
Written by The Domains in EN and tagged
Why Is Selling Ads On Trademarks OK For Google But Not For Domainers? - Sell a trademark as a keyword for directed search or online auctions and make $billions. But use a trademark in a domain name for direct search and lose the domain, or worse. The gap between how trademark law treats the two species of search has grown wider in the wake of several landmark 2010 trademark law decisions – and provides another sound reason why ICANN should not establish any new rights protections for new gTLDs beyond those STI-RT compromise positions already included in the ... read more ...
Fri 13th August 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN Community Faces Policy Overload - Community and ICANN system may be overwhelmed by quantity of policy issues. As I write this, there are currently 30 open or recently concluded comment periods at ICANN. You can comment on anything from “Interim Paper on Policy Aspects Regarding Introduction of Single Character IDN TLDs” to “Proposed Bylaws Amendment to Add Voting Director from the At-Large Community to the ICANN Board of Directors”. You just missed your opportunity to comment on “Revised ... read more ...
Tue 10th August 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
VeriSign Gets Patent Related to Internationalized Domain Names - Patent is for method of registering and using IDNs. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted U.S. patent number 7,774,432 to VeriSign for Registering and using multilingual domain names. The patent application was a continuation of a 2001 application that was abandoned, and a provisional application from 2000. This particular application was filed in 2007. The abstract for the patent sums it up: A method, system, and computer-readable medium are described ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
AntiCybersquatting Lawsuit Filed Against ChicagoRestaurant.com - Shunned by UDRP, former domain owner takes his case to court. After losing a UDRP case for the domain name ChicagoRestaurant.com, Chicago Restaurant Entertainment Guide, Inc., has filed an in rem lawsuit against the domain name alleging cybersquatting. Before you yell “that’s a generic!”, you should know that this domain name was allegedly stolen. The plaintiff had registered the domain and kept the whois email in the name of a technology service provider. ... read more ...
Mon 9th August 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
FTC Settles with Con Artists in Domain Name Renewal Scam - FTC settles lawsuit over domain name renewal scam. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has settled with a group in Canada that it says posed as domain name registrars and duped thousands of people and companies into paying bogus bills by leading them to believe they would lose their Web site addresses unless they paid. We in the domain name industry often refer to this as the “domain name renewal scam”. The FTC charged Toronto-based Internet Listing Service back ... read more ...
Sun 8th August 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Peace and Love, But No Reverse Domain Name Hijacking - Company fails to get generic PeaceandLove.com domain name. GS Enterprises LLC has failed in an attempt to get the generic domain name PeaceAndLove.com through UDRP. But the panelist’s line of thinking, and failure to consider reverse domain name hijacking, is troubling. Thierry Ehrmann registered the domain name all the way back in 1997, and GS Enterprises’ trademark for “Peace Love” wasn’t registered by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office until 2007. ... read more ...
Fri 6th August 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
ICANN Moves Forward on .XXX - .XXX gets the yellow light at board meeting. The ICANN Board adopted a resolution yesterday that will allow ICM Registry’s application for .xxx to move forward. But it may not be a quick process, and a new can of worms will be opened allowing for another comment period on the actual registry contract. Here’s the resolution that was adopted: Whereas, ICANN’s General Counsel has completed the expedited due diligence regarding ICM Registry, as directed by the ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Sri Lanka, Thailand Among Those Getting New IDN Domain Names - Sri Lanka and Thailand join ranks of countries getting their own ccTLD in their own language. ICANN has delegated five more internationalized domain names for top level country code domain names. Yesterday the ICANN board approved a resolution delegating two top level domains for Sri Lanka and one for Thailand: Delegation of IDN ccTLDs: 1. Sri Lanka Whereas, Sri Lanka is a country currently listed in the ISO 3166-1 standard. Whereas, .ලංකා (“Lanka”), ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
.Jobs Expansion Approved, .Travel to Release 1 and 2 Character Domains - Registry operators for .jobs and .travel get their wishes. .Jobs and .Travel, two top level domains that probably would have done better if they were released as generic TLDs rather than sponsored, got positive results from ICANN’s board meeting yesterday. At least as far as the registries are concerned. First, the .jobs registry received permission to effectively open up .jobs. Until now it has been restricted to companies registering just their company name, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Zuccarini Responds in Domain Case, Says Assignee is Lying - Zuccarini responds to contempt charges, alleges contempt himself. The ongoing battle of John Zuccarini and the assignee in Office Depot’s cybersquatting case is getting even more interesting. To bring you up to speed: -Zuccarini was found to have cybersquatted on Office Depot -DS Holdings “bought” the judgment Office Depot won, so now it is owed the money (the IRS also has a tax lien) -Zuccarini’s other domain names were to be used to satisfy the judgment ... read more ...