Archive for the ‘world intellectual property organization’ Category
Company files complaint over sites that use its Flickr brand.
Yahoo has turned to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to help it shut down two X-rated sites that use Flickr in their domain names.
The company filed the complaint with WIPO over the domain names nastyflickr.com and nudeflickr.com, each of which lead to a web site containing adult photos. They each contain a logo that looks similar to the Flickr blue and red logo as well. They are owned by a Tacoma, Washington man.
This isn’t the first time Yahoo has gotten into a fight over the Flickr brand. In 2009 Yahoo sued AshantiPLC, which is owned in part by domain investor Sahar Sarid, over the domain name Flicker.com (without the missing ‘e’). Yahoo said that Ashanti had purchased Flicker.com for $55,000 in 2006 and had been flaunting the domain and the traffic it received. The company allegedly turned down a $700,000 offer for the domain.
Yahoo eventually settled the case and got the Flicker.com domain name.
© DomainNameWire.com 2011.
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Company that was subject to Google UDRP fights back.
French company Francotel, LLC has filed a UDRP complaint with World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) over the domain name Adwords.com, Domain Name Wire has learned. The case is not yet posted on WIPO’s web site.
Francotel has a French trademark for “Adwords”. It filed to cancel Google’s European Union trademark for “Adwords” earlier this year but lost the case.
Google filed a UDRP against Francotel in May over the domain name ad-words.mobi in a case that’s still pending.
Now Francotel is fighting back by going after Adwords.com itself. In the complaint, Francotel argues that there’s no reason for Google to use the Adwords.com domain name “other than to mislead consumers into inferring an association with Francotel’s adwords Mark and services.”
The company also claims that Google registered the Adwords.com domain name to infringe “thousands of trademark holder” around the world and to use the domain name for “abusive and anticompetitive practices”.
© DomainNameWire.com 2011.
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Company gets a triple xxx domain name — but I’m not talking about the top level domain.
Google has gotten its hands on GoogleXXX — but not Google.xxx (yet).
The company was awarded GoogleXXX.com in a World Intellectual Property Forum ruling just handed down.
This got me thinking: with the .xxx top level domain name coming out, will it lead to more xxx typos?
One type of domain companies should consider registering is just like what Google just got — trademarkxxx.com. A lot of people are trained to type .com after any web address, so I suspect we’ll see more traffic to domains like these. Googlexxx.com already gets some traffic according to Compete.
Then of course there’s xxx.com, which should see a huge spike in traffic. It should consider wildcarding name.xxx.com.
That said, I’m not sure these typos are a huge risk for brands. People know that coke followed by xxx probably isn’t an official company site, anyway.
© DomainNameWire.com 2011.
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NFL wants to take over Super Bowl web site.
The National Football League’s lawyers may be busy trying to settle the lockout, but its lawyers have time to play games with domain names, too.
The NFL just filed a domain name dispute with World Intellectual Property Organization over the domain name SuperBowlConcierge.com.
The domain name is owned by Houston, Texas based EE Nation, which offers a number of travel services.
SuperBowlConcierge.com is focused primarily on selling transportation to Super Bowl attendees, although it also has an affiliate link to a ticket broker. The company owns some other domain names that may be troublesome, including BCSBowlConcierge.com and NBAFinalsConcierge.com.
The NFL hasn’t filed a similar domain name dispute since 2009, when it won a collection of 26 domain names registered by one person.
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Benefit of the doubt given to complainants in .co cases.
Companies have filed 51 UDRPs against .co domain names since the relaunch of .co into an international domain name extension over the summer. They haven’t lost yet.
Complainants are 25-0 in cases that have been decided, and further settled seven cases prior to having them heard by World Intellectual Property Organization panelists.
In most cases the domain at issue is an exact match to a famous brand such as aolmail.co and cointreau.co. But the benefit of the doubt is afforded to complainants, such as in the case of TGV.co. The complainant merely pointed to a parked page offering the three letter domain name for sale as evidence. And the respondent in HGTV.co didn’t even bother to respond.
If you registered a generic or acronym .co domain name for good intentions, be sure you aren’t parking it. It’s an easy way to lose the domain name.
© DomainNameWire.com 2010.
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Pamela Anderson beats an old foe to get domain name.
Pamela Anderson has won a case for the domain name PamAnderson.com in an arbitration case at World Intellectual Property Forum.
The case was brought against Alberta Hot Rods, a group that had a run in with Anderson back in 2002. In the 2002 WIPO case Anderson won the domain names PamelaAnderson.com, PamelaAnderson.net, and PamelaLee.com.
What’s somewhat strange is how Anderson didn’t go after the PamAnderson.com domain name earlier, and that was a troubling question to one panelist who questioned the merits of the case. Panelist Neil Brown also called it “very dubious” that PamAnderson.com is confusingly similar to PamelaAnderson.com
Sure, that could be cleared up by looking at the content of the web site at the domain, but the idea that a domain is confusingly similar to a mark must rest on its own — not based on the content a person sees when they actually visit the site. In fact, this is a common argument made against gripe sites, where a complainant says that people won’t understand that a domain in unaffiliated with the complainant until they actually visit the site.
© DomainNameWire.com 2010.
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Scam ups the ante by pretending to be World Intellectual Property Organization.
The Trademark Domain Name Scam is upping the ante, now pretending to be an email sent from World Intellectual Property Organization.
In this scam, an entity that usually says it’s located in Asia says that someone has applied to register a number of domain names that include your “trademark” (really just the second level of one of your domain registrations). You can see an example of the scam emails here.
It’s an effective scam. I get more inquiries from smart business people about this particular scam than any other.
Now the scammers are upping the ante, sending the email with a return address @wipo-int.com. Wipo.int is World Intellectual Property Organization’s web site.
www.wipo-int.com does not resolve but is registered to “KS Network Solutions”. The email includes two attached graphics, one with a phone number to contact the scammer and one with the web address ks-register.com.
If you get one of these emails, just delete it or spam it. (Note to Google: create a button in Gmail to “report scam” in addition to the “report spam” button.)
© DomainNameWire.com 2010.
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Title sponsor for Carnival event in Toronto loses case to get Caribana.com domain name.
Bank of Nova Scotia, the title sponsor for Toronto’s Caribbean Carnival called “Caribana”, has lost a dispute to gain ownership of the domain name Caribana.com.
Bank of Nova Scotia — aka ScotiaBank — filed the complaint with World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to get the domain name from Working Word Co-operative, which publishes Word Magazine.
Working Word told WIPO that it acquired the domain name in 1997 with the approval of the group that owned the trademark at the time. Due to financial problems with the festival, ownership of the Caribana mark has changed several times.
Bank of Nova Scotia entered into its sponsorship agreement with the current festival organizers in 2008, and claims that it has a licensing right to the Caribana mark.
The WIPO panel found in favor of Working Word, deciding that it registered the domain name in good faith in 1997 with the approval of the event’s organizers. The organizers frequently sent event information to Working Word for inclusion on the web site.
This case brings up an interesting point. I see trademark licenses handled in different ways when it comes to UDRP cases. Often times a panel will find that the owner of the mark, not a limited licensee, should bring the case. Here, if ScotiaBank had won the case, what would happen when it was no longer title sponsor of the event?
© DomainNameWire.com 2009.
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iPod and iTunes maker fights for Mexican country code domain name.
Apple, Inc. has launched a complaint with World Intellectual Property Organization over the domain name iTunes.com.mx. .Mx is Mexico’s country code, and .com.mx is the standard second level domain used in the country (although Mexico is now opening up .mx at the first level). The arbitration panel should render a decision on whether Apple gets the domain name within a couple months.
This isn’t Apple’s first foray into arbitration for iTunes-related domain names. In 2008, the company won iTunesLatino.com and iTunesDownload.com through arbitration at National Arbitration Forum. iTunesLatino.com now forwards to a Spanish-language version of iTunes.com. The registrar that controlled iTunesDownload.com never transferred the domain to Apple. (That registrar, Lead Networks of India, is currently fighting with ICANN to keep its accreditation.)
© DomainNameWire.com 2009.
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