A recent cyber-squatting dispute sheds light on the fact that although avenues for resolutions exist, cybersquatting is still a major problem plaguing internet commerce today. It all started when US media giant Viacom, decided to move material about its TV show ‘Jackass’ to the domain name ‘jackass.com’, but realized that a serial cybersquatter based in the Virgin Islands (owned […]
Internet users are familiar with the current top level domain structure of the World Wide Web. .com, .edu, and .org, amongst others, are all part of the common vocabulary used to navigate the wealth of information available online. Recently, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) approved a plan to add more top […]
According to a recent decision by a WIPO arbitration panel, an original manufacturer may not have an infringement complaint when an unauthorized dealer’s domain name contains the manufacturer’s trademark. Although there has been some criticism of the ruling, the decision appears to provide a balanced result. This high-impact ruling was a result of a complaint brought […]
Google has become a well known name in the world of IP lawsuits. Just before Google got a chance to settle the huge lawsuit over ‘book scanning’, it was faced with yet another one. This recent lawsuit comes from the marketing professor at the Harvard School of Business, Benjamin G. Edelman, who is suing with […]
Update July 7, 2009: Jonathan Giraldi’s post “CIRA’s WHOIS Policy Strikes a Balance” won the Gowlings LLP Best Blog in IP Law and Technology Prize Fall 2008 in Professor D’Agostino’s IP class In a hotly-debated move, Canada’s internet domain registry authority has allowed select groups to request the personal information of domain registrants, after promising […]
“The fundamental purpose of trademark law, in the bricks-and-mortar world and on the Internet, is to protect consumers from being confused as to the source or affiliation of the products or services that they seek to buy”, announced American Airlines in American Airlines, Inc. v. Google, Inc. in August 2007. The airline brought the lawsuit […]
A Kentucky Judge has upheld his earlier order allowing the Commonwealth of Kentucky to seize 141 gambling related domain names because they allow residents of Kentucky to access gambling sites. The State argued that each of the domain names fell within the meaning of a “gambling device” under state law KRS 528.010(4) and were thus […]
Since the advent of the Internet in the early 1990s, domain name registration has provided a constant source of dispute. On the one hand, you have people who are merrily registering domain names of their choosing; on the other hand, you have trademark holders who are frowning at the fact that their most obvious domain […]
In the article “ICANN’t Believe That Domain Name,” Wired’s Oscar S. Cisneros details some of the issues and concerns surrounding the current process of resolving disputes between trademark holders and the owners of Internet domain names. This comment will briefly outline the dispute resolution process described in the article before arguing that the current system […]
The Uniform Dispute Resolution Process (UDRP) established by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has attracted comment from people ranging from specialists in the field to the average curious mind wanting to be heard. In his comment, Oscar S. Cisneros while acknowledging the advantages of setting up a dispute resolution process in […]