Judgment nets 800 Domains
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.
This entry was posted by Karen Monteith on Friday, October 16th, 2009 at 1:06 pm and is filed under Case Law, Domain Name Disputes, Protection & Enforcement. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Got something to say?
You must be logged in to post a comment.