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Not everything is trademarkable. I hold the .org version of my domain name. Other people hold the .net and .com versions, and we all do different things with them. I don't even run a website on mine; the others do, and in a different language than mine. In cases like this, whoever got there first, got there first.

One can also make a pretty good case that being the first to trademark something doesn't mean you should have a right to the domain name:

http://www.nissan.com/Digest/The_Story.php

Nissan (which was, of course, known as Datsun outside of Japan at the time Uzi Nissan opened his computer shop), tried to screw him royally and pretty much succeeded until they got to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. This case has a lot to do with I have never bought a Nissan and likely never will.

Well, when you are paying for a domain name, you aren't paying for the database entry - you are paying for the right to exclusively use that particular name, right?

If I am interested in purchasing an Audi, do I go to audi.com or audi.auto?

• (i) your domain name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the complainant has rights; and
• (ii) you have no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name; and
• (iii) your domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith.

• (i) circumstances indicating that you have registered or you have acquired the domain name primarily for the purpose of selling, renting, or otherwise transferring the domain name registration to the complainant who is the owner of the trademark or service mark or to a competitor of that complainant, for valuable consideration in excess of your documented out-of-pocket costs directly related to the domain name; or
• (ii) you have registered the domain name in order to prevent the owner of the trademark or service mark from reflecting the mark in a corresponding domain name, provided that you have engaged in a pattern of such conduct; or
• (iii) you have registered the domain name primarily for the purpose of disrupting the business of a competitor; or
• (iv) by using the domain name, you have intentionally attempted to attract, for commercial gain, Internet users to your web site or other on-line location, by creating a likelihood of confusion with the complainant's mark as to the source, sponsorship, affiliation, or endorsement of your web site or location or of a product or service on your web site or location.

In other words, even if the other site has a trademark on SimpleDog, if you're using it for a legitimate business and your site does not compete with them (does not leech off their fame for commercial gain), you're pretty safe. In fact, if your thesimpledog.com site became famous and you were able to turn it into a multi-million dollar business venture with widespread name recognition, and simpledog.com was still an advertising site which advertised what your business sold, you'd actually have pretty a good chance to get their domain transferred to you. They would be leeching off your fame for commercial gain, and thus satisfy definition 4b(iv) of using the domain in "bad faith".

(Incidentally, section 4b(i) is why you never, ever put a dollar amount on your domain in these cases. Their lawyers will immediately jump on it as evidence that you're using the domain in bad faith.)

Quite a story. That guy needs a sharper, tougher lawyer.

Question: id his case is so solid, why hasn't he sued Nissan?

www.nissan.com

Tell that to this guy: http://nissan.com/

Slashdot is a site that receives international visitors. How would you propose we label Slashdot in your scheme?

Likewise, if I talk about the Starbucks in Burlington, I know what I mean, but without some context you'll have no way of figuring out what I'm talking about.

A quick Google search comes up with Starbucks in Burlingtons in Vermont, Ontario, North Carolina, Washington, and Massachusetts. Which one do I mean when I say "the Starbucks in Burlington?"

Well, I mean the Starbucks in Burlington, Massachusetts. But here's the thing: there are two Starbucks in Burlington, Massachusetts. (More if you count Starbucks served inside of other stores.) Which one do I mean? Well, for this example, I mean the one on Mall Road.

So I can't just say "the Starbucks" because that is too vague. I can't just say "the Starbucks in Burlington" because that's too vague. I have to exactly specify it, down to a street. People aren't going to want to have to do that just to link to places like CNN or aren't going to think that there might be a different, "closer" CNN in some parts of the world.

A real-world example could be the difference between Nissan Computer and Nissan Motor. Currently Nissan Computer has nissan.com, but under your scheme if I said "Nissan" based on my location (Massachusetts) it'd be obvious I meant Nissan Motor because Nissan Computer are further away than the nearest Nissan dealer.

How would I explicitly point to Nissan Computer in your scheme? By specifying an exact location?

Back to the Slashdot example. Where is Slashdot? I guess it's in the United States. So I could address it as "Slashdot US" in your scheme. But what if someone sets up a Slashdot Massachusetts? I don't want that Slashdot, I want the original. I guess that's in Michigan. But the servers are in California, aren't they?

Your scheme fails because it doesn't allow an exactly specified address, it instead works solely for discovering locations. So instead of remembering Slashdot's new fully qualified domain in your scheme, I could just search Google for it. Something I can do already.

Ultimately, though, it doesn't solve the problem. At some point you still need a registrar to assign names for whatever your smallest geographic region is.

... but www.nissan.com is still owned and operated by Nissan Computer Corporation. As approved by the USSC - a little light reading for you.

... but www.nissan.com is still owned and operated by Nissan Computer Corporation. As approved by the USSC - a little light reading for you.

But the point is, people who create sites do care if their name is recognizable. They have to. Nobody wants to create a popular site, and then have somebody else squat the exact same URL (except with a different TLD) and populate it with a bunch of porn links or ads.

Your point is taken well. TLD's are not just "TLDs". They've become part and parcel with trademarked names and company names. No,no, no. It's not Expedia... it's Expedia[dot]COM. Etc. Companies scramble to register their business names only to find another business with the same name (see Nissan Computers long legal battle against Nissan Automotive).

You have to consider registering variations of your domain name before someone else does to avoid trademark dilution and consumer confusion. {company name}, {company name}Manufacturing, {company name}ManufacturingCompany, {company name}MFGCO, etc. Of course, YMMV depending on your company name and sector/trade.

Companies have multiple sites such as "corporate site", "brand A site", "Brand B site", "Product A Micro-site", etc. Then, they might have to register multiple variants of those sites. Singular and plural versions, Nicknames, and keywords. ie: should it be Business.com, BusinessProduct.com, BusinessProducts.com, BusinessProductName.com, etc. (some products are two words that are commonly referred to in the singural, like "Toilet Seat" might just be called a "Seat" or "Seats" in the context of a bathroom.

On top of that you have to consider registering multiple TLD's. .COM, .NET, .ORG, .JOBS, .BIZ, .INFO, etc. Now, if you're an international company, you have to consider registering country specific TLD's. .US, .CO.UK, .FR, .IT, .CN, .MX, etc. Now, they're opening up regional TLD's that companies have to consider... .EU, .ASIA.

You take all the TLD's , all the sites a company might have, and all the name variations a of a site name a company might register, and you get yourself one hell of a mess and cost. Sure, domains are relatively cheep but if you're managing hundreds or thousands, it becomes a huge sink, particularly since most everyone STILL uses .COM.

Then you have to tie this all in with Search Engine parameters such as duplication. All you do is register these domains and 301 redirect them to your flagship domain name, which doesn't do a whole lot for you. Others might use language specific sites, which will pass duplication standards.

I guess, a good question is... what do people with to manage their site domains? What is your domain strategy? Do you try to register everything you can to avoid squatters and parkers for brand dilution? Or do you just say "screw it" and let them have them, they're not likely to get much out of them. Should you really use .jobs to be/point or redirect to your careers page? Or just say "screw it" because "no one"(tm) uses it?

Cheers,
Fozzy

But the point is, people who create sites do care if their name is recognizable. They have to. Nobody wants to create a popular site, and then have somebody else squat the exact same URL (except with a different TLD) and populate it with a bunch of porn links or ads.

Your point is taken well. TLD's are not just "TLDs". They've become part and parcel with trademarked names and company names. No,no, no. It's not Expedia... it's Expedia[dot]COM. Etc. Companies scramble to register their business names only to find another business with the same name (see Nissan Computers long legal battle against Nissan Automotive).

You have to consider registering variations of your domain name before someone else does to avoid trademark dilution and consumer confusion. {company name}, {company name}Manufacturing, {company name}ManufacturingCompany, {company name}MFGCO, etc. Of course, YMMV depending on your company name and sector/trade.

Companies have multiple sites such as "corporate site", "brand A site", "Brand B site", "Product A Micro-site", etc. Then, they might have to register multiple variants of those sites. Singular and plural versions, Nicknames, and keywords. ie: should it be Business.com, BusinessProduct.com, BusinessProducts.com, BusinessProductName.com, etc. (some products are two words that are commonly referred to in the singural, like "Toilet Seat" might just be called a "Seat" or "Seats" in the context of a bathroom.

On top of that you have to consider registering multiple TLD's. .COM, .NET, .ORG, .JOBS, .BIZ, .INFO, etc. Now, if you're an international company, you have to consider registering country specific TLD's. .US, .CO.UK, .FR, .IT, .CN, .MX, etc. Now, they're opening up regional TLD's that companies have to consider... .EU, .ASIA.

You take all the TLD's , all the sites a company might have, and all the name variations a of a site name a company might register, and you get yourself one hell of a mess and cost. Sure, domains are relatively cheep but if you're managing hundreds or thousands, it becomes a huge sink, particularly since most everyone STILL uses .COM.

Then you have to tie this all in with Search Engine parameters such as duplication. All you do is register these domains and 301 redirect them to your flagship domain name, which doesn't do a whole lot for you. Others might use language specific sites, which will pass duplication standards.

I guess, a good question is... what do people with to manage their site domains? What is your domain strategy? Do you try to register everything you can to avoid squatters and parkers for brand dilution? Or do you just say "screw it" and let them have them, they're not likely to get much out of them. Should you really use .jobs to be/point or redirect to your careers page? Or just say "screw it" because "no one"(tm) uses it?

Cheers,
Fozzy

...until I found out how much of a bad corporate citizen they actually are. I will never buy a Nissan or Infiniti vehicle because of this incident http://www.nissan.com/Digest/The_Story.php, nor will I recommend Nissan/Infiniti to any of my close circle of friends.

Nissan.com I think is the traditional example.

Quick link to why this is a traditional example:
http://nissan.com/Digest/The_Story.php

He should see this page

A car company tries to sue a guy for starting a website to sell computers based on his own name, Nissan. Go figure, a guy selling computers is first to get the nissan.com domain.

Yes.

To give another example, imagine if I created a site with a name similar to Microsoft, and whenever someone Googled Microsoft, my domain would come up, and a significant number of people came to me first.

That's not exactly the case. utube.com existed before youtube.com--utube.com isn't trying to exploit YouTube's fame. It's more like Nissan Computer vs. Nissan Motors.

tell that to Uzi Nissan

http://www.nissan.com/Digest/The_Story.php

So would it then logically follow that http://www.nissan.com/ would lead to Nissan Motors' homepage, correct?

I fully agree with you.

A very good example of a legitimate company forced into submission is the Nissan.com case. I encourage you to read it and be outraged at the injustice.
http://www.ncchelp.org/
http://www.linksandlaw.com/decisions-141-nissan.ht m

Take a look at nissan.com sometime for another ridiculous cyber-squatting dispute.

remember this guys?

http://www.nissan.com/

Which is why the apple market has very little to do with the Windows market. You can't run Windows on the apple hardware (in general) and you can't run OSX on generic PC hardware. So the operating systems have eerilly similar features. Microsoft isn't threatening Apple's marketshare. If you've got apple, you know if you like it, and chances are slim you'll switch back based soley on the reason Microsoft comes out with new features. And vice vera. I know I won't switch to Apple just because their instant messanging software is new and improved. Completely different markets. Its almost the difference between Nissan the Carmaker and Nissan.com

Speaking of cars, go check out http://www.nissan.com/. I wonder what will happen with this case now that the ruling in the above article was made.

It does? Then explain why Mr. Uzi Nissan couldn't use http://www.nissan.com/ to house his computer business' online presence.

Google wants it to offer a general-purpose web-based email service to the general public.

The investment firm uses it as a subscription-based mailing list for traders, bankers, brokers, etc.

The Gospel Music Association uses it to refer to their newsletter.

The fourth firm, it doesn't say specifically, only that it's involved in high-tech equipment design.

Remember that a trademark only protects your mark in your specific line of business; it doesn't give you the undisputed use of the name in all arenas. Not that it stops the big companies from trying to throw their weight around, mind you (Like Nissan)

I completely agree with you on your post. Especially this:

If the owner of the site actually WAS Fallwell (regardless of the content), or was a business with that name but in an unrelated industry (first come first serve in cases of conflict I'd say)

However, not always the case. One should only look as far as www.nissan.com.

Uzi Nissan has run self-named businesses in the United States for decades. When Mr. Nissan started Nissan International, Nissan Motors was known in the US as "Datsun". From the success of Nissan International, he created Nissan Computers. In 1994, he registered the domain name "www.nissan.com".

You can probably guess what happened. SIX years later, Nissan Motors sued Mr. Nissan for $10 million. But, the Nissan is the guy's name and the name of his business. He used the name in the US longer than Nissan Motors did. He is in a completely unrelated industry. He registered a trademark with the Nissan name a decade ago, years before the lawsuit. Slam dunk for Mr. Nissan, right?

Wrong.

While Nissan Motors didn't get their $10 million and lost most of their claims, there's no question that Nissan Motors won the case in every sense of the word. You can read more about it here

Other people have the same problem with other .com want ot be. On exemple is "http://nissan.com/ the owner mister Nissan from the west coat if I remember have the site from the beginning of the internet, and use the site to promote his services. The big corporation Nissan make then close the site.

Mr Nissan registered the site http://www.nissan.com/ for his computer business. Nissan Motors came along later, and put up enough of a legal struggle, that Mr. Nissan had to change his website, so that it cannot be used for commerical purposes, namely, Mr. Nissan's computer shop. The whole story is here --> http://www.ncchelp.org/The_Story/the_story.htm/

Which Nissan? The real company, or this idiotic cyber-squatter who at one time was sending millions of spams whining about his legal troubles.

You don't even have to go that far. A Mr.Uzi Nissan owns a computer company, and has been prevented from using his web site and registered domain name for commercial purposes. Article at Wired.com.

You mean like Uzi Nissan?

Read more here.

They knew full well that Microsoft(TM) do not have a legal leg to stand on in trying to get Mike Rowe to stop using his own name. If Microsoft thought they were right, do you think they would have caved like this? That would just be inviting domain squatters to taunt them.

First of all, although it's bad publicity, they have a leg to stand on, especially once you realize that this is not only about Mike Rowe using his own name (which it isn't at all...that's been done before with the Uzi Nissan/Nissan.com case). Now I don't know a damn thing about Canadian law (and very little about trademark law anyway) -- but Microsoft has enough cash and lawyers to bankrupt this kid (and his family) -- which means that after they bankrupted Mike Rowe (and his family) they'd win a summary judgement when Mike Rowe failed to show up for court.

Secondly, Microsoft HAS to protect their trademark. This is not a simple case of a kid just using his name...I keep hearing this and I just think it's naive. Check out the Register article from the original slashdot post last week. In it, they paraphrase him as saying he wanted a cool site with a name that sounded like the software giant (my paraphrase). If this is true, Microsoft has a case -- it's NOT just someone's name, and if Mike Rowe actually said this, it proves intent. Now, as far as how trademark law applies to homophones (and this is the crux of the case) -- I don't know. AFAIK, it hasn't even been tested. However, if MSFT's trademark was dilted in any way, or it is even perceivable that their trademark is being tested, MSFT is responsible (to their shareholders) to fight tooth and nail to preserve that trademark. Otherwise, Microsoft's trademark doesn't mean squat under law. If I ran a business that had a trademark to protect, I'd consider doing the same thing.

Instead of looking bad and spending a shitload of money, they ended up looking like nice guys and spending next-to-nothing. Sounds to me like they did the right thing. A win/win situation. This is about the easiest settlement I've ever heard of. Do you think that every time someone settles, it's because they didn't have a leg to stand on? Do you have any idea how much it takes to go to court, especially when you know you will not benefit?

I guess what frustrates me about this (I ranted alot in earlier coverage of this topic) is that this shows where Slashdotters seem to have the hardest time being objective. If they see Microsoft, they immeadately think "those bastards". If a company tries to protect IP or trademark in any way, slashdotters will jump and yell "bastards". If a big company with deep pockets sues a little guy, slashdotters will jump and yell "bastards". If there's ever a dispute over a domain name and a large orginization is involved, Slashdotters are quick to yell "bastards". Sure, alot of these guys are bastards (I'm not Microsoft fan), but it's pretty imporatant to at least try and learn the facts before taking sides.

BTW -- if it's not immeadately clear from the post, IANAL.

I sincerely hope that you are being facecious and not merely looking to flamebait.

Nope dude, I'm being totally serious. I should ask the same about you -- are you even reading my posts? You must not have read the article.

He intentionally used a name that sounded like Microsoft? He used his OWN name!! How is this an attempt to capitalize on anything but his own name, given to him at BIRTH?...As for MikeRoweSoft.com, it's an amusing coincidence, but I'm willing to accept it as a coincidence and nothing else...

It's not a coincidence -- and I've been over this. Read the posts you're reponding to. According the Register article (which I've consistently quoted) -- he intentionally used a name that sounded like Microsoft. I didn't just make this up -- I'm not pulling it out of thin air. It's in the article. Do I need to quote it again, or can you manage to find it yourself?

If Mike Rowe registered the domain mikeroweweb.com or mikerowedesigns.com -- there wouldn't be an issue. If Mike Rowe had not told reporters that he intentionally used a name that sounded like the software giant, this wouldn't be an issue. This is not like that case of Uzi Nissan (see http://www.nissan.com) where a guy just used his name as you suggest. It's completely different. Regardless if whether or not he used his name, he intentionally added something to it that sounds an awful lot like a trademark...this was not a mistake -- he even said it was intentional.

I will not respond another post unless you indicate, in some way, that you're reading (and retaining) responses to you and not just firing off a bunch of trollish crap.

For discussions sake, let's say that Mr Rowe has spare change of 1 Trillion US Dollars (yes, I am being hypothetical here)....

Now Mr Rowe registers his company as Mike Rowe Soft. Then he decides that www.microsoft.com is an infringement on his company name. Keep in mind that he has lot of money and can affort 1 trillion dollars of spare change. He makes an offer to Bill Gates/Microsoft to relinquish www.microsoft.com in exchange for 1 Trillion US dollars. Bill Gates looks at the offer and being tempting as it is, agrees to it. Now Mr. Rowe can hire Smart and Bigger lawer firm to sue microsoft and say that the domain name www.microsoft.com was registered in bad faith to eventually make money out of it....

Well.... the timing of registration could be an issue here. I remember there was another case like this www.nissan.com but Nissan Motor Co. couldn't win the case for that domain name !!

A guy named McDonald who wants to use his name on a restaurant would probably be out of luck, but if he were opening an electronics store, he'd be OK (and could probably even defend his ownership of mcdonalds.com... if he'd registered it before Kroc's outfit did).

That's the way it should work, but some guy with the name "Nissan" seems to prove you wrong. He did have a computer company with the same name as a multinational corporation with a different business, and he still ended up screwed by the whole deal.

Why would Mike Rowe have the rights to his name? Mr. "Nissan" didn't have rights to his name.

Bad faith is buying www.adobereader.com and emailing Adobe and demanding money for it. Bad faith is hearing that a new company is being formed and buying up reasonble web names and camping on them until an offer is made. Good faith is having the same exact name as a major international corporation and hosting a web site of the same name.

However, since those with good faith still lose, I expect that Mike Rowe will lose as well. He certainly has no more of a claim to the name than Mr. Nissan, running Nissan Computers has to Nissan.com. It isn't about law anymore, it is about money...

I'd predict that Mike Rowe doesn't stand a chance.

I agree, but for different reasons. This is not a simple case of Microsoft trying to claim ownership of MikeRowe.com. Mike Rowe intentionally registered the domain name "mikerowesoft.com" in order to use Microsoft's name. Now, I don't know what Mike Rowe intended to do with this domain -- how Microsoft will handle its case will depend on this. (Specifically, did profit or intend to profit from the use of Microsoft's name). If it's non-commercial, Mike Rowe may have a case (particularly if he dropped the 'soft' from the end). See http://www.nissan.com.

Anyway, I stand interested in the outcome -- one way or the other. However, I don't think that this case is as simple as any of the examples I've seen. There's an interesting twist to this one.

I thought that he had legally changed his last name to "Rowesoft" (hey, it's 6 in the morning, gimme a break), in which case I think it would be totally within his right to have his own name as his domain name.

You would be incorrect--just ask Uzi Nissan. And he was BORN with that name, he didn't change it.

Don't forget about the case that Uzi Nissan is fighting with Nissan Corp. Uzi registered nissan.com to run his business "Nissan Computers" (if I remember correctly). He's been fighting them for a while over his own name.

http://www.nissan.com/

Anyone remember this poor sap?

Nissan (the car company) sued Uzi Nissan (a technology company owner) to get his website. They [car corp] "lost" in the sense that they didn't get the domain name, but they convinced the court to totally neuter it: it cannot host any commercial content, nor can it link to any site that hosts commercial content.

IMO, there's a small group of users [b]from both projects[/b] being asses, and the rest of the people are going "Christ, get over yourselves, one's a browser the others a database."

Let's find a litmus test. Ms. Harrison offers an analogy: Apple's trademark would not be infringed by a business called "Apple Cleaners." If common sense will prevent the everday consumer from being confused, then you're fine. However, if your best excuse is that consumers won't be confused because your product only appeals to an elite niche, then you're too close for comfort. Pick a new name.

I really don't understand how anyone could defend Mozilla's actions, here. Even if you don't understand the trademark argument, don't y'all have a grasp of "good manners"? What happened to being considerate of other people? Part of professionalism, in my book, is conducting business in good-faith. Using someone else's trademark simply because your lawyers tell you they can beat the case doesn't pass the "good faith" test by a mile.

The bottom line is simple: People are defending Mozilla, not their actions. Remember Uzi Nissan's website? Didn't we all jump to his defense, and condemn the big, bad corporation who was trying to wrestle away his trademark? If the "Firebird" browser belonged to Microsoft, or Apple, every Linux user in the world would be seeing red about this situation. But because we're talking about Mozilla, too many people are willing to excuse bad-faith acts.

That doesn't do the Open Source community any good, IMO.

crib

Personally, I think he should turn the site into a non-profit porn/goatse.cx page.

.

Looks like I should contact Apple, Nissan, and Seven about improving my lifestyle. I already sing the praises of my iBook and XTerra...and a custom built Axiom Titanium would round out my stable quite nicely.

Uzi was born with the last name of Nissan and put his computer company's website at the place which made sense nissan.com. Nissan, however was not always Nissan but Datsun. It changed its name to Nissan in 1987.

The full sad story is here.

Other articles are here and here.

Uzi was born with the last name of Nissan and put his computer company's website at the place which made sense nissan.com. Nissan, however was not always Nissan but Datsun. It changed its name to Nissan in 1987.

The full sad story is here.

Other articles are here and here.

I would guess that if you are using nissan.com as the homepage for Nissan Computers, a small business run by Uzi Nissan, you have every right to use nissan.com. You did read the article, didn't you?