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I always use DomainSurfer which does sub-string matching if not proper wildcards...

"I am motivated to stick with what I believe in."

And so he should. It would seem Microsoft has no choice but to back down as, legally, it doesn't have a hope in hell of winning and there are plenty of lawyers out there who would love to get a win against Microsoft under their belt.

I think if he does get enough support, he probably should fight back. But it brings another case of the Nissan.com domain to me in which the domain name can't be used commercially.

What I thought was very interesting about the case was mentioned in the FAQ to the Nissan.com case. It said

1. As of June 12th 2000 there are (2223) domain names registered on the Internet containing the word nissan in them. To the best of our knowledge, most of those domains are not owned by Nissan Motor Co. Click here to view a partial list of them.
2. Also here is another list with nissan as the first word of the domain name there are (860 ) of them Click here to view. If you wish to see which entity owns any particular listing, just click on the WHOIS link next to it.

In the www.MikeRoweSoft.com case the interpretion is weaker as the similarity is "phonetic" which is really quite fuzzy, compared to the actual presence of the word "nissan" in the domain name. Despite this the original owner of the Nissan.com domain could not prevail.

If you go to the website Nissan.com you see the following Notice: In compliance with a ruling issued by the United States District Court in Los Angeles on November 14, 2002, in the lawsuit of Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. v. Nissan Computer Corporation, this web site has been converted to non-commercial use.

The story from the Domain Name Handbook was

1. Japanese automaker Nissan Motors Co., Ltd. and Nissan North America, Inc. filed suit against Nissan Computer Corp., a North Carolina-based corporation since 1991 with a registered trademark for its name.
2. Uzi Nissan, an Israeli-American born in Jerusalem, registered NISSAN.COM in 1994 to expand his computer business and NISSAN.NET two years later to expand his ISP business.
3. In August 1999, he posted a logo similar to that of Nissan Motor Corp, and began promoting automobile-related products and services.
4. The automaker filed suit for trademark dilution on December 10, 1999. The court granted a preliminary injunction and held that Mr. Nissan is trading on the automaker's goodwill and diverting potential Nissan car customers to other websites.
5. He was ordered to post a prominent disclaimer of any connection to Nissan Motor Corp and refrain from displaying any auto-related information.

So, I guess, I could see something like this happen. Mike Rowe may be ordered to post a prominent disclaimer of any connection to Microsoft Corp and refrain from displaying any computer-related information. IANAL.

"I am motivated to stick with what I believe in."

And so he should. It would seem Microsoft has no choice but to back down as, legally, it doesn't have a hope in hell of winning and there are plenty of lawyers out there who would love to get a win against Microsoft under their belt.

I think if he does get enough support, he probably should fight back. But it brings another case of the Nissan.com domain to me in which the domain name can't be used commercially.

What I thought was very interesting about the case was mentioned in the FAQ to the Nissan.com case. It said

1. As of June 12th 2000 there are (2223) domain names registered on the Internet containing the word nissan in them. To the best of our knowledge, most of those domains are not owned by Nissan Motor Co. Click here to view a partial list of them.
2. Also here is another list with nissan as the first word of the domain name there are (860 ) of them Click here to view. If you wish to see which entity owns any particular listing, just click on the WHOIS link next to it.

In the www.MikeRoweSoft.com case the interpretion is weaker as the similarity is "phonetic" which is really quite fuzzy, compared to the actual presence of the word "nissan" in the domain name. Despite this the original owner of the Nissan.com domain could not prevail.

If you go to the website Nissan.com you see the following Notice: In compliance with a ruling issued by the United States District Court in Los Angeles on November 14, 2002, in the lawsuit of Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. v. Nissan Computer Corporation, this web site has been converted to non-commercial use.

The story from the Domain Name Handbook was

1. Japanese automaker Nissan Motors Co., Ltd. and Nissan North America, Inc. filed suit against Nissan Computer Corp., a North Carolina-based corporation since 1991 with a registered trademark for its name.
2. Uzi Nissan, an Israeli-American born in Jerusalem, registered NISSAN.COM in 1994 to expand his computer business and NISSAN.NET two years later to expand his ISP business.
3. In August 1999, he posted a logo similar to that of Nissan Motor Corp, and began promoting automobile-related products and services.
4. The automaker filed suit for trademark dilution on December 10, 1999. The court granted a preliminary injunction and held that Mr. Nissan is trading on the automaker's goodwill and diverting potential Nissan car customers to other websites.
5. He was ordered to post a prominent disclaimer of any connection to Nissan Motor Corp and refrain from displaying any auto-related information.

So, I guess, I could see something like this happen. Mike Rowe may be ordered to post a prominent disclaimer of any connection to Microsoft Corp and refrain from displaying any computer-related information. IANAL.

Dang, wonder how this will effect the great service provides.

I'd like to see the list. 1,800 may sound like a lot, but clearly there's some selective enforcement going on. A single quick Domain Surfer Search turns up over 6,000 candidates. Some may turn out to be non-infringing, and some may be licensed, but I doubt that there are 4000+ such exceptions.

The 'Special Olympics' has seemed curiously spared -- it may be licensed, but I've never seen any indication of Olympic licensing *or* the Olympic seals or symbols at Special Olympic events. Yet it is a sporting event that people may legitimately assume operates under Olympic imprimatur, and it is so well-known (with a 32 year history) that the IOC can hardly claim they weren't aware of it.

What's the diligence standard for trademark defense, anyway? Maybe they've already lost a big chunk of their exclusivity -- a fact that the next 'little guy' they persecute may be able to use in their defense.

someone else posted this as well I think...but just in case, try :

http://www.domainsurfer.com

http://www.domainsurfer.com/
-------------------------------------------

Look here full examples of names you can no longer get unless you pay money.

And I have several of them myself, such as linuxhomepage.com :-)

Domain Surfer is in trouble. And heck, so am *I*... my DNS resolver (caching only) has some of this copyrighted info that it "reproduces".. am I going to be sued!!!???
---
Don Rude - AKA - RudeDude

What does this do to a service like Domain Surfer?

Go to Domainsurfer.com and search for *rus.com
it finds 1,928 matches for RUS ;)

Go to Domainsurfer.com and search for *rus.com
it finds 1,928 matches for RUS ;)