E-Commerce Law: “On April 29, 2010, the United States District Court for the District of Arizona granted, in part, Plaintiff’s request to enjoin the Defendants’ use of certain trademarks and domain names related to skydiving in Arizona. Skydive Arizona, Inc. v. Quattrocchi, 2010 WL 1743189 (D. Ariz. April 29, 2010).”
Jacqui Cheng of Law & Disorder reports on the results of cybersquatting case where the defendant prevailed because it was a website that was critical of the trademark owner. The article begins:
“A gripe site that incorporates a company’s entire trademark into its domain is still protected under the First Amendment, a US District Judge has ruled. In the case of Career Agents Network v. careeragentsnetwork.biz, the judge said that the gripe site made no effort to bolster its own business and was noncommercial, therefore protecting it from Career Agents Network’s trademark claims and cybersquatting accusations.”
See the federal district court opinion.
Digital Media Lawyer Blog: “It seems unthinkable. How can a business that has registered and used a trademark for a decade lose an ACPA case against a serial cybersquatter who has been adjudicated to have used the mark at issue in bad faith? The fact is that it can and does happen. When a plaintiff sues under the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, it must prove that it owns a valid trademark. 15 U.S.C. § 1125(d). This means that an ACPA suit puts the validity of the plaintiff’s trademark at issue. And if the defendant chooses to put up a fight, the end result of an ACPA suit can be that the plaintiff’s trade name loses protection as a trademark. This was the result in American Blind. It also may be the result in Lahoti v. Vericheck.”
E-Commerce Law: “The Plaintiff, Weather Underground, Inc. (‘Weather Underground’), is a commercial weather services that indexes information provided to it by multiple weather stations and generates revenue from subscriptions and advertisements. The primary Defendant, Navigation Catalyst Systems, Inc. (‘NCS’), is a domain name holding company which acquires generic and descriptive domain names in bulk. After registering domain names through a subsidiary, who was a also a Defendant, NCS submitted the domain names to another subsidiary and Defendant which created automatically-generated Web pages based on the domain name text. These Web pages contained hyperlinks to third-party pay-per-click advertisers. Accordingly to the Complaint, the links redirected users to competitors of the Plaintiff.”
Digital Media Lawyer Blog: “In a recent ruling, a judge in the Central District of California ordered a defendant in a cybersquatting case to turn over hundreds of domain names that incorporated the names of professional athletes to the plaintiff, Toronto Raptors power forward Christopher Bosh. . . . See Bosh v. Zavala . . . . While some might laud the Court’s intentions, the order violates both the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and California law. It also creates as many problems as its solves.”