Pac12.com Owner Sues Pac-10 Conference Over Domain Name
Lawsuit filed over Pac12.com domain name.
The owner of the Pac12.com domain name has sued the Pacific-10 collegiate athletic conference in an effort to keep his domain name.
Austin Linford filed the suit (pdf) after the PAC-10 filed a UDRP complaint (pdf) with World Intellectual Property Organization to get the domain name Pac12.com. Linford is asking for a declaratory judgment of non-infringement.
Although it originally appeared that the domain name changed hands immediately after the PAC-10 announced it was changing to the PAC-12, I’m now convinced that the same person owned the domain name. Linford just used different registrant information in WHOIS. This means he owned the domain name some five years before the conference announced its name change.
Linford changed the contents of Pac12.com to a play on the late Tupac Shakur after the PAC-10 sent him a cease-and-desist letter.
In addition to registering Pac12.com, Linford also says he registered Pacific12.com and PACtwelve.com.
The legal filing in U.S. District Court in Utah should halt the UDRP proceeding. In his complaint, Linford says the PAC-10 tried to stack the deck in its favor by selecting two UDRP panelists who were graduates of PAC-10 schools.
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