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Check out nissan.com. He runs "Nissan Computer Corp."

Companies sometimes want URLs to be used like phone numbers and sometimes not, depending on their own interests.

When Nissan Motors wants the rights to http://www.nissan.com [Nissan Computer Corp.], it argues that the URLs are like trademarks that people should be able to type in.

When Intentia says it was hacked, it argues that URLs should not be typed in.

From some of his actions, it sounds like he tried to capitalize upon this and started putting car ads, etc, on his site.

Read his side of the story. He had a Nissan Foreign Car Mobile Repair Service since 1980, before the introduction of the Nissan Motors brand name. So logically some of his visitors might be interested in foreign car parts. And look at his site. He has a pointer to NissanDriven.com (which redirects to nissanusa.com) at the top. IMO Uzi Nissan is being a good netizen and despite the biases of some reporters, if you examine the facts it's hard to spin it any other way.

They say that "a domain name isn't tangible property."

Uh huh. Tell that to people who wind up on the wrong end of 'cybersquatter' lawsuits, like this guy.

If a domain name isn't tangible property, then doesn't this ruling somehow negate or diminish the concept of a trademark, which is also in most cases just a name?

If a big corporation can sue for alleged misuse of their name or dilution of their trademark, then I would say that a name certainly can be tangible property and that the ruling that stated it isn't is flawed as all hell. Or is this just another case of monied corporations having rights that citizens don't?

~Philly

I wasn't going to respond to this until I came to a rather unsettling realization. You are of course right when you say that the World Wildlife Fund had the name first, I'll even grant that they used the acronym first though I'm not sure. Whats got me botehred though, is that I much like a great many other people, applied a good old doulbe standard. I'd rather WWE be able to use the WWF moniker and the World Wildlife Fund just not worry about it. WWE certainly didn't have any complaints with the World Wildlife Fund using the name, the Fund are the folks who made it a binary issue.

But that's not really the point, the point is that the World Wildlife Fund has as much right to the name as Nissan Computers has to nissan.com. They've got a name, they weren't piggybacking off another companies success, and they got there first. Those are usually the criteria we use when defending some guy with a URL. The wrestling use of WWF is certainly better known, but that argument is the very one we deride when judging cases like the one of nissan.com. Sue nissan motors is better known than nissan computers, but nissan computers has just as much right to the name as the car company.

So effectively what I've done is picked the guy who I want to win, and geared an argument to defend him. Certainly not uncommon in the world today. Perhaps, and here I'll begin rambling so bear with me or just stop reading, its the fact that the World Wildlife Fund filed the suit claiming the (then) World Wrestling Federation could no longer use their name of 20+ years. At this point I've been conditioned to believe that whoever files a suit is a greedy petty twit who deserves to loose. Stand up comics, SNL, and goobers sueing because McDonalds made them fat have done that. Of course there's lots of valid suits like when my car blows up and kills my dog or something, then that's okay, but the instant I hear "lawsuit" I just say "uggghh..." and tune out. I"m not going to foward a consipiracy theory about how this helps large corps, but it is at least lucky :) Mostly though, it's telling of me, and whoever may be similar to me in this regard.

Thanks for bearing with me on that. So in conclusion, crow tastes remarkably like chicken...

As a member of Generation X, I was stoked to see that wearable computers are now available ("Hey Gen-Xers: Wearable Stuff!", Maxim, March 2002). ThinkGeek would have taken two days to deliver, so I hopped in my X-Terra and cruised down to Brookstone with my S.O. (she wanted to check out the genital jewelry).

That night while I was fisting her ("How to fist anyone!", Maxim, July 2001) our nipple ring walkie-talkies touched each other briefly, long enough to send an arc through all of our body piercings (I have 13, she has 22). Bummer! My roommates wanted to know what all the commotion was, so we told 'em someone got eaten by a croc on Survivor ("Lie--it's okay!", Maxim, January 2001). Yeah. Anyway we now have to get the burn marks taken out of our tribal tats, get some piercings redone, buy a new snowboard (bummer!), and replace the American flag that got burnt when my girl exploded--gotta support the troops so we don't have to start speaking Afghani! Although I would like to smoke some Afghani right about now...Huh huh.

Just want to remind all my peeps to play it safe when your fisting your girl, and don't forget to vote

What happens when two companiesvie for the same name?

This bothers me because then the 'big boys' woulds decide with copyright holder is entitled to teh domain. Case in point, Nissan.com run by Nissan Computer services, but Nissan Motors wants it, too.

Under the old system, Nissan Computers got it becuase he was there first, and because he has a legal right to the name. Under the new system, I guarantee that Nissan.com ( dot-whatever) would go to Nissan Motors without any sort of consideration. This a a Bad Thing.

But then again, why Is Nissan Motors entitled to that name anyway? 'Nissan' is not their name, it's Nissan Motors (or something to that effect).
.

On one hand URLs aren't property, thus can't be stolen. (US court)

On the other hand, URLs can be forcibly reassigned from one party to another. (ICANN)

URLs aren't like software licenses. They aren't fungible assets, they're unique. Can a court rule that your phone number will be taken away just because it's 225-5288 (CALL-ATT)? Can they decide to transfer that number to AT&T in every area code that contains an AT&T office?

Now, if it's a trademark issue, then a legal ruling entity should be able to order the cease and desist of the use of a specific domain name, but shouldn't be able to order the transfer to another party. The trademark namespace is not exclusive. Just because there's a Ford Motor Company doesn't stop there from being a Ford Bookstore. It only stops there from being a Ford something-or-other in the auto industry. The Internet in not an industry that umbrellas over all trademark namespaces. A good case in point is Nissan Computers. They're being sued by Nissan Motors because they want the domain. This is clearly not a case of trademark infringement, as both companies have the registered trademark "Nissan". What right does Nissan Motors have over the domain?

So when would trademarks apply, and how should it be dealt with? If, for example, I had the domain name ford.com and started a car company I would get sued for trademark violation, and rightly so. After I received a judgement forcing me to abandon the name ford in conjunction with my car company, I should be free to market the domain name ford.com to anyone who can legally use it, not just the one who was fastest to sue. Ford Books should have just as much right to purchase it as Ford Motors. It's unlikely that they would, because in an open market Ford Motors would pay me more, but this is an economic issue, not a legal one.

Just one more hypothetical: Say 'Orange' is a small organic farm in Idaho, been in business for decades. Orange.com is registered by someone else and they set up shop as an organic farm on the net. Say the original Orange goes to ICANN and asks for the domain, because of a trademark violation. The company wins and Orange.com is now in the first person's name. then Orange Computers, a multi-billion-dollar company comes along to ICANN and says Orange.com needs to go to them because they have a stronger tie to the name in the internet space. Shopuld it just get passed up the chain? Is this right?

Property is what this is all about. We have far more laws over property and posession than we do over 'name assignments'. The telephone number analogy is full of crap. My 'net telephone number' is my P address and you can do whatever you want with it, I don't care. When you choose a domain name from a mutually exclusive 100+ character namespace you're creating a brand, an identity, and not just a choice between THE-KING (845-5464) or THE-BING (845-2464). When is one of these cases going to make its way up the chain of appeals?

Kevin Fox

Well this case seems like the "first come, first serve" rule is still in effect. And I guess that's a good thing.

Though sometimes it's a pain. Did you ever try to find out about Nissan cars and trucks at Nissan.com? Well, you'll only see a cheesy frontpage site about a little computer store in North Carolina. Nissan the car company had the amazing foresight not to get Nissancars.com, or Nissan-cars.com, but Nissan-USA.

God I hate URLs with dashes in them...