Archive for the ‘Domain Name Disputes’ Category
« Older Entries |Judgment nets 800 Domains
Friday, October 16th, 2009
According to news reports (here and here), Chris Bosh, of the NBA’s Toronto Raptors, was awarded control of 800 domains through a U.S. Federal Court ruling. The domains, which included chrisbosh.com, were apparently wrongfully appropriated from professional athletes, including some fellow NBA players and celebrities.
The reports state that Chris Bosh had won an earlier judgment for $120,000 US from a cybersquatter. There were doubts that the cybersquatter would pay and Bosh’s lawyers successfully argued that domain names were personal property which could be used as partial payment for the damage award. This ruling appears to be the first time that a court has awarded third party domains to a plaintiff.
Chris Bosh apparently plans to return the appropriated domains to the applicable athletes and celebrities, for no charge.
Posted in Case Law, Domain Name Disputes, Protection & Enforcement | No Comments »
Trademark Clearinghouse To Help Combat Cybersquatting?
Friday, July 17th, 2009
A story earlier this week reported that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) – the organization charged with oversight of the Internet, including the creation of new generic top level domains (gTLD’s) – is considering setting up a centralized database of trademarks to help combat cybersquatting and other negative domain name registration practices. The proposed IP Clearinghouse would be a depository for trademarks and provide unified rules for trademark holders to block domain name registrations that include use of such trademarks, unless the applicant can prove that its proposed use will be legitimate.
This proposal will be closely monitored by the trademark community as ICANN continues to move forward with its controversial proposal to exponentially expand the number of gTLDs. The concern of trademark holders is that the task of protecting their brands online, which is already difficult enough with the existing gTLDs, will become prohibitively expensive.
The idea of the IP Clearinghouse was one of the recommendations outlined in the Final Report on Trademark Protection of ICANN’s Implementation Recommendation Team (IRT). At the recent ICANN meeting in Sydney, the IRT presented its report. The IRT Final Report was open for public comment until June 29, 2009. ICANN might not make a final decision on the idea until late 2009, at which time it could potentially decide on a variation of the IP Clearinghouse, depending on the public comments that it receives.
Though it appears to be a moving target at the moment, the launch of the new gTLDs could potentially take place as early as February or March of 2010.
Posted in Domain Name Disputes, Domain Names, Famous Marks, Protection & Enforcement | No Comments »
Free iPhone Bike App Sparks Dispute
Thursday, June 4th, 2009
The Montreal Gazette and La Presse each recently reported on the decision by the Stationnement de Montréal (“SdM”) to assert intellectual property rights against the developer of an iPhone application which pinpoints the locations of public-use bicycles made available for rental by the SdM.
Sparko.ca developed a free iPhone application called BixiMobile, together with a supporting webpage located at www.biximobile.com, to assist online users with finding Bixi bike locations throughout Montreal. The application launched on Sunday; by Tuesday, Sparko had received a cease-and-desist letter from Stationnement de Montréal’s counsel directing the company to withdraw the application, and hand over the domain. Perhaps more interestingly, it appears SdM have additionally directed Sparko to hand over the code that supports the iPhone application.
Posted in Branding, Domain Name Disputes, Protection & Enforcement | No Comments »