Archive for the ‘Cybersquatting’ Category
Posted January 11th, 2012
In a case brought under the Lanham Act, alleging cybersquatting, contributory cybersquatting, as well as claims of unfair competition, Plaintiff Petroliam Nasional Behad (“Petronas”) asserted that www.petronastower.net and www.petronastowers.net (registered by Go Daddy) were used by one or more non-parties to violate its trademark rights by cybersquatting.
See the full story HERE, HERE & HERE.
Posted in Cybersquatting, Enforcement, Intellectual Property, trademark issues by Ken Taylor
Posted October 10th, 2011
As reported on DomainIncite.com: “ICANN is in the process of looking for an operator for the Trademark Clearinghouse that will play a crucial brand protection role in new top-level domains.
An RFI published last week says that ICANN is looking for an exclusive contractor, but that it may consider splitting the deal between two companies — one to provide trademark validation services and the other to manage the database.
The TMCH is basically a big database of validated trademarks that registrars/registries will have to integrate with. It will be an integral part of any new gTLD launch.”
Click HERE to read more.
Tags: ICANN
Posted in Cybersquatting, ICANN by Kelly Hardy
Posted June 11th, 2011
Another score for trademark holders has been racked up in the anti-counterfeiting arena.
As reported by Techcrunch.com: “Women’s clothing designer Tory Burch has been awarded $164 million in damages from online counterfeiters that have been selling copies of her shoes, bags and clothing on the web. According to Women’s Wear Daily, this is the largest amount of money awarded to a fashion designer for damages from online counterfeiters. For background, in 2008, eBay was forced to pay Louis Vuitton $61 million over the sale of counterfeit bags and accessories on the auction marketplace.
Tory Burch filed lawsuit in December 2010, alleging trademark counterfeiting and cybersquatting by a group of counterfeiters (believed to be based in China) that had set up hundreds of websites selling fake Tory Burch goods.”
Click HERE to read the full article.
Tags: anti-counterfeiting, Tory Burch
Posted in Anti-Counterfeiting, Cybersquatting, trademark issues by Kelly Hardy
Posted April 26th, 2011
It seems there is no where to hide from the media blitz that is the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton; not even on domain blogs.
Today’s domain related Will and Kate news comes courtesy of Jeff Geaney, a self professed “professional cybersquatter” who snapped up royalweddingring.com as part of a scheme to make money off the royal nuptials.
As reported by Couriermail.com.au: “Jeff Geaney buys and sells Internet addresses and quickly snapped up the address royalweddingring.com as soon as he heard Prince William and Kate Middleton were engaged.
“I thought, how will people be making money from this? Replica rings!” Geaney said.
As he predicted, there has been an online rush for knock-offs of the engagement ring William gave Kate in November, with retailers scrambling for the best domain name to attract customers.
Geaney is a professional “cyber-squatter”. For more than a decade, he has been buying addresses he predicts will be in high demand and sells them to the highest bidder.
“I’m waiting for a bigger offer at the moment,” Geaney said after receiving an anonymous $10,000 bid from the UK in an online auction.”
Click HERE to read the full article.
Tags: Cybersquatting, Jeff Geaney, Kate Middleton, Prince William, Royal Wedding
Posted in Cybersquatting by Kelly Hardy
Posted April 25th, 2011
According to Domain Name Wire: “ Morgan Stanley already has the domain names — but it wants more than that.
The bank has filed a lawsuit against the owners of five domain names that it says were used for cybersquatting and phishing.
The company already has possession of four of the five domain names thanks to proceedings at National Arbitration Forum last year. Through UDRP it picked up ms-ae-fund.com, morganstanleyae.us, morganstanleyae.com, and morganstanley-ae.com.”
Click HERE to read the full article.
Tags: Cybersquatting, Morgan Stanley, phishing
Posted in Cybersquatting by Kelly Hardy
Posted February 24th, 2010
Earlier this week the domain name for Rolling Stone magazine, Rollingstone.com appeared to have expired and briefly become a Network Solutions parking page. The twittersphere exploded with comments in reference to the event to the tune of “I wish I had bought it” and “I could be very rich right now”. More alarming than this mass interest in cybersquatting the domain and ransoming it back to Rolling Stone was the information that the domain was not set to expire until September 2011. According to Adam Strong of Domain Name News, this is a problem that NSI refers to as a “glitch.”
If a domain of such high profile can incur a “glitch” of this magnitude, it can happen to any domain. Consider this a warning shot. Your registrations are not infallible. Watch your expiration dates like a hawk. Constantly monitor your domain resolution. IP protection is a constantly changing game.
Click HERE for the full Domain Name News article on Rollingstone.com “glitch”.
Tags: Cybersquatting, Network Solutions, Rollingstone.com
Posted in Cybersquatting, Internet Security, Registrars, Tech News by Kelly Hardy
Posted January 19th, 2010
As reported by Andrew Allerman of Domain Name Wire: “The number of cybersquatting cases filed under Uniform domain-name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) fell to a three year low in 2009, and the rate of cybersquatting cases compared to the total number of domains registered fell to an all-time low, according to an analysis by Domain name Wire”.
To read the full article, click HERE.
Tags: Cybersquatting, UDRP
Posted in Cybersquatting, UDRP by Kelly Hardy
Posted December 14th, 2009
From The Economic Times
It’s a business worth millions of dollars that some Internet entrepreneurs are eyeing by sale of websites dedicated to the Tiger Woods scandal, even as the disgraced golfer himself has lost millions in earnings to his ‘infidelity’.
Dozens of websites have been registered in the past few days and put on sale for prices as high as 21 million dollars to cash in on the scandal involving the former ‘God of Golf’ and his mistresses.
These include TigersHarem.com, one of the most expensive so far, TigerGotWood.com, TigersLitter.com, TigerTexts.com, TigerLies.com, TigerWoodsLies.com and 2TimingTiger.com, which are currently on sale at leading online marketplace eBay.
Around 20 such website addresses are currently on sale for a price totaling to over 100 million dollars — an amount nearing the golfer’s annual income from his endorsements and tournaments.
See the full skinny HERE.
Tags: Cybersquatters, Scandal, Tiger Woods
Posted in Cybersquatting by Ken Taylor
Posted November 19th, 2009
“Law firm claims cybersquatting and trademark infringement against ex-employees gripe site.”
For the full story, click here.
Tags: Cybersquatting, gripe site, trademark infringement
Posted in Cybersquatting by Kelly Hardy
Posted September 7th, 2009
If its a day ending in Y, someone, somewhere is aggressively misunderstanding the domain name system. In today’s episode, Moniker are refuting a lawsuit from TransAmerica in which TransAmerica has accused them of cybersquatting. Moniker is claiming that TransAmerica’s lawyers do not understand the domain name system. Moniker has already requested rule 11 sanctions against TransAmerica claiming they have “failed to investigate the basic facts, or makes false statements of facts which they should have known through reasonable investigation were untrue,”.
Click here for more information - http://tr.im/y5Xr
Tags: Cybersquatting, Moniker, TransAmerica
Posted in Cybersquatting, Know Your Domains by Kelly Hardy
