Tag: Cybersquatting

January 8, 2009 Cybersquatting, Trademarks

Verizon obtains damages, injunction against regsitrar under ACPA

[This is a guest post by contributor Brian Beckham]

Plaintiff Verizon California, Inc. (Verizon) recently obtained a default judgment in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, San Jose Division, in its favor against Defendant, the registrar OnlineNIC, Inc. (press release).

Despite repeated attempts, Verizon was not able to serve notice on OnlineNIC; the court ultimately approved Verizon’s application to serve process with the California Secretary of State. OnlineNIC was alleged to have engaged in the bad faith registration of 663 identical or confusingly similar domain names incorporating one of Verizon’s family of marks (e.g., <bestverizon.net>, <myprepaidverizon.com>, <verizonflios.com>, <vzwactivate.com>, etc.) inter alia, in violation of the ACPA. Verizon’s unchallenged, well-pleaded allegations were accepted by the court as true; OnlineNIC’s liability was thus established.

In addition to OnlineNIC’s default, significantly, the court noted that OnlineNIC had refused to alter its behavior (presumably after a cease & desist letter) and had purposefully attempted to avoid detection (e.g., by providing false contact information). However, given the default, the court was reluctant to impose the full statutory damages provided for under the ACPA ($100,000 per infringement), but imposed damages of $50,000 per violation (totaling $33.15 million). It remains to be seen whether Verizon will successfully collect, nonetheless, Verizon obtained a transfer order in its favor for all of the 663 infringing domain names. OnlineNIC (including any related entity) was further enjoined from directly or indirectly (i) registering, trafficking in or using any domain name that is identical or confusingly similar to the Verizon marks and (ii) assisting, aiding or abetting any other person or business entity in engaging in or performing and of the said activities.

This injunction seems to leaves open the question of whether the seemingly common registrar practice of actively suggesting alternate domain names available for registration (e.g., those that add alphanumerical strings, e.g., <new____4u.com>, <buy____.net>, <your____.org>, <my____pro.com>, <best____.com>, etc.) would be covered by the “assisting, aiding or abetting” language in the injunction.

Case is: 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 104516

June 30, 2008 Copyright, Cybersquatting

Statutory damages for copying competitor’s catalog on website

Silver Ring Splint Co. v. Digisplint, Inc., 2008 WL 2478390 (W.D.Va. June 18, 2008)

Silver Ring and Digisplint are competitors in a niche industry, each producing and selling fine jewelry quality finger splints made of gold and sterling silver. Silver Ring sued Digisplint for copyright infringement alleging that Digisplint copied text from Silver Ring’s 1994 catalog, and posted that text on Digisplint’s website.

Before trial, the court awarded summary judgment to Silver Ring on the question of liability for copyright infringement. The question of damages proceeded to trial. Finding that “nearly identical and very similar text comprise[d] substantial portions of both [works],” and that the similarities were “obvious and persuasive,” the court awarded Silver Ring $30,000 in statutory damages pursuant to 17 U.S.C. §504(c)(1). It found that Digisplint’s copying was willful, and although Digisplint reaped no profits from the infringement, the award was to serve as a deterrent to future conduct of the sort.

Digisplint had filed a counterclaim pursuant to the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) over Silver Ring’s registration of digisplint.com. The court found in favor of Digisplint on this claim, and entered an injunction against any further registration of a confusingly similar domain name. But because Silver Ring registered the domain name in 1998, prior to the enactment of the ACPA, Digisplint was entitled to no money damages, only an injunction.

January 30, 2008 Cybersquatting, Trademarks

Finding ATLAS COPCO and ATLAS CASPIAN confusingly similar, court awards in rem ACPA relief to unopposed plaintiff

Atlas Copco AB v. Atlascopcoiran.com, No. 07-1208, 2008 WL 149128 (E.D. Va. January 8, 2008)

Unable to hail the overseas registrants of domain names, including atlascaspian.com and atlascopcoiran.com into a U.S. court, plaintiff Atlas Copco AB sought in rem relief against the domain names under 15 U.S.C. §1125(d)(2)(a). After the defendants failed to answer the complaint, Atlas Copco moved for summary judgment, relying on the allegations of its verified complaint.

The court granted the motion and ordered the domain names transferred.

In finding that the defendants had engaged in cyberpiracy, the court looked at the “dominant or salient portions of the marks” at issue – the plaintiff’s mark and the marks comprising the offending domain names.

For you trademark experts out there, query whether you might characterize the following analysis as a bit of a stretch:

The dominant portion of each of the Defendant Domain Names is “ATLAS COPCO” or “ATLAS.” These “dominant” terms are paired with the generic terms “CASPIAN” and “IRAN,” which are generic geographic terms that do not distinguish the Defendant Domain Names from the ATLAS COPCO trademark. An internet user might reasonably assume that the geographic term “CASPIAN” and “IRAN” were added to the ATLAS COPCO trademark by the Plaintiffs to identify its geographic location.

It looks like another motivation for the court’s finding was some of the subterfuge on the sites at the offending domain names. Turns out some of them pointed to “copycat” websites bearing “Atlas Caspian” logos confusingly similar to the plaintiff’s trademark, and linked to phishing sites bearing the actual Atlas Copco mark.

January 23, 2008 Cybersquatting, Trademarks

Personal name must have trademark significance for protection under ACPA

Salle v. Meadows, No. 07-1089, 2007 WL 4463920 (M.D. Fla. December 17, 2007)

Defendant Meadows thought that Plaintiff Salle owed him about $9,500.  He was apparently having some trouble getting paid, so he registered the plaintiff’s personal name as a domain name – briansalle.com.  He then tried to sell it to Salle for the amount of the purported debt.  Being uninterested in the purchase, Salle filed a cybersquatting complaint against Meadows in federal court.

Salle asserted claims under both 15 U.S.C. §1125(d) and 15 U.S.C. §1129. Both parties moved for summary judgment. It was a mixed ruling, but largely a win for Salle.

The court addressed the §1129 claim first.  That portion of the Lanham Act provides:

Any person who registers a domain name that consists of the name of another living person, or a name substantially and confusingly similar thereto, without that person’s consent, with the specific intent to profit from such name by selling the domain name for financial gain to that person or any third party, shall be liable in a civil action by such person.

Meadows argued that in trying to sell the domain name and thus recover money owed to him, he was not trying to profit, and therefore not liable under §1129.  Despite some dispute over whether the debt was actually owed and to whom, the court ruled in Salle’s favor.  “[C]yber-extortion is not a permissible way to recover a debt,” the court warned.

As for the §1125(d) claim, the court ruled in Meadows’s favor.  Section 1125(d) provides, among other things, that a person shall be liable to the “owner of a mark, including a personal name which is protected as a mark under [§1125]” if that person has a bad faith intent to profit from that mark. 

Salle argued that §1125 provides that all personal names are subject to trademark protection. Meadows, on the other hand, argued that a personal name must have some sort of trademark significance, e.g., acquired distinctiveness, in order to fall with the protection of §1125. Agreeing with Meadows’s interpretation of the section, the court found that Salle failed to present enough evidence to survive summary judgment on the question of whether he had protectible trademark rights in his personal name.

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