Nominet Changes DRS Policy and Procedure

UK based Nominet is changing its dispute resolution policy with the new changes coming into effect on July 29 2008.

While there has been a truckload of modifications, here are a couple that stand out:

1. For those disputes where there is a response, the case goes into mediation and you have to pay an expert fee of £750 plus VAT.

2. “Respondents can pay for an Expert decision if the Complainant declines to pay, in order to request a finding of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking.”

3. A “likelihood of confusion” factor has been introduced. This means that a threatened use of a domain name may be evidence of an Abusive Registration.

A full summary of the changes is available on the Nominet web site.

Carlsbad Takes Legal Action Over Golf Course Domain

A lawsuit filed in the federal court in San Diego claims that Prince Reza Shah hijacked and unlawfully profited from the domain name thecrossingsatcarlsbad.com.

SignOnSanDiego reports “according to a domain registration site, Shah owns more than 280 names, some of which are for sale. Among the domain names are “tiger-woods.mobi” and “trump-golf.mobi.”

Apparently the city held a contest in 2006 to name the golf course and announced the name on Oct. 18, 2006.  Shah applied for the trademark on Nov. 30, 2006.

Lockheed Martin Loses Domain Name To Aussie Entrepreneur

Lou Schillaci and his co-director Claire Linley founded their flat panel display mounting company six years ago.

Three years ago they filed for the skunkworks trademark in Australia and Lockheed Martin objected.

Of course, Skunk Works is a term that was first coined in 1943 by Lockheed, currently trademarked by Lockheed Martin and widely used in business, engineering, and technical fields to describe a group within an organization given a high degree of autonomy and unhampered by bureaucracy, tasked with working on advanced or secret projects.

Their pair, without any assistance from lawyers, fought Lockheed Martin by themselves and won! Lou Schillaci told SmartCompany “We have put a lot of time into building the brand – our IP is so quirky that people remember it and that is the whole point. We look at web stats and the just 1% of people who used to come to our site by the word ‘skunkworks’ is up to 17% now, so that tells us people remember it and that is worth money to us.”

In case there was any doubt, Schillaci’s company, Skunkworks Pacific comes up #1 in Google for the term skunkworks.

Police Arrest Domain Name Blackmailer In Vietnam

Police in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam have arrested 24 year old, Huynh Chi Hieu for “domain name blackmailing”. Its been reported that the man was caught at a construction company, receiving VND30 million (US$1,860).

In Feb, the man allegedly called the website manager for the Lotus Steel Sheet Company (LSSC), and told them that he had their domain name for sale at $2,500. The company had a different domain name and subsequently didn’t pay the money.

In early May, Hieu allegedly posted damaging information on a fake website he had created and asked for VND50 million ($3,090). The company agreed to the deal and secretly contacted police.

US Band Forced To Change Name Over Domain Dispute

Iowa based band, Lazy Boy & The Recliners have been performing since 1994. Their website, lazyboyandtherecliners.com was created 10 years later in 2004. As you can imagine, they were shocked to receive a cease and desist letter from La-Z-Boy Incorporated (NYSE: lzb)

Vocalist Kevin Hanick told Press-Citizen, the letter read:

“We believe that your use of the name Lazy Boy and the Recliners and use and registration of the domain name lazyboyandtherecliners.com constitute trademark infringement and federal unfair competition in violation of the Lanham Act and at common law and may constitute dilution under the federal Trademark Dilution Revision Act.”

Rather than fight the issue, the band decided to change its name to The Reclinders and negotiated a donation of $2,500 the nonprofit organization, Summer of the Arts. The organization oversees many free events including the Friday Night Concert Series, Iowa Arts Festival and Iowa City Jazz Festival.

Ashley Alexandra Dupre Files a $10M Domain Name Lawsuit

The alleged call girl involved with former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer has filed a $10 million lawsuit in a US Court. The defendants are: MRA Holding, LLC a California Limited Liability Company; and Mantra Films, Inc., an Oklahoma Corp.

Dupre is seeking damages for, among other things, unjust enrichment based on videos and DVD’s sold via domain names which, its been alleged, have been registered in bad faith. For the lawyers reading this, the domain name component is brought under the Anti-Cyber-squatting Consumer Protect Act – Section 43(d) of the Lanham Act. Documents filed in the Southern District of Florida reveal that the domain names involved are:

www.ashleydupre.net
www.girlsgonewildashleydupre.com
www.ashleyduprecallgirl.com
www.onelivecall.com/ashleydupre

In my mind, there are a HEAP of questions coming out of this, starting with:

1. Were the domain names registered in bad faith, and how do you prove it?
2. What is reasonable compensation for this?
3. What damage has she actually suffered?
4. If you have the view that your name is a trademark, then who has the right to your name?
5. Was the trademark registered in the first instance?
6. What about all the other Ashley Dupre’s in the world?

This is going to be a very interesting case. While the documents filed in the District Court mention profit from the sales of DVDs and videos, what about all the affiliate comissions and PPC advertising on the sites? As I write this post, the domain ashleyduprecallgirl.com is still online, complete with match making ads and a picture of the girl in question.

Personally, I think this is going to be tough case to prove. However, it might surprise you that I’m on the side of the call girl. Why? Because people who go out of their way to register dodgy domain names should have the book thrown at them (or in this case the DVD’s they are allegedly selling).

Its cases like this that the media latch onto and then make “broad brush” statements about cybersquatters being evil (which they are), but unfortunately domainers often get lumped in with those guys. Lets hope the media has matured enough to recognize the issue, this time around.