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Your logic means someone can come take whatever from whoever as long as they are bigger.

No, his logic is that that being quick and greedy is not a defense against trademark claims. The devil is in the details. If you want a legitimate claim at a trademark name then you need to show that you legitimately do something with it. Like Nissan Computers.

The devil is often in the details as you say. The timeline smells of cyber squatting. If it didn't they may very well have ended up the new Nissan Computers

You seem poorly informed...

It's weird that Nissan would post such anti-Nissan information on the website they "got".

Apple records sued Apple Computer back in the 80s as well. They settled in 1981, They sued again or settled in 1989 and 1991.

Sounds similar to how Nissan Motors tried to force (unsuccessfully) Mr Uzi Nissan to give up his nissan.com domain name.
See nissan.com for his story.

That was my first reaction as well. Ask Mr. Nissan how hard he had to fight to keep his own.

But he also said that that was broken and shouldn't be happening, and that one of his strengths was that he was best positioned to fix it because he knew exactly how it was broken as an insider participant.

There is something to this. A long time ago domain names started being sold for about $5/yr instead of ~$100/yr. Shortly after, around the mid-90s when NCSA Mosaic (the first web browser) came out, I was playing with it and browsing the few websites which existed. A labmate asked if I wanted to see a movie. We tried calling the theater to find out what was playing (that was what you did in those days - the theater set up a line with a recording of the movies and playtimes), but kept getting a busy signal. Then it occurred to me that this was Boston and the nearby businesses were pretty up to date with the latest technology. Maybe the theater had a website with playtimes. So I did a bit of searching (Yahoo was more or less a topically-sorted bulletin board back then) but couldn't find any movie theater sites.

Frustrated, I remarked to my friend that someone should just buy the domain movies.com, collect theater locations and movie playtimes, and put them on a single site to make this easy for everyone. Then it occurred to me - *I* could do that. The thought played in my head for about 10 seconds, before I decided that, no, it wouldn't be proper for me to do it. Someone in the movie or movie theater business should be the one to do that. That was their business, their turf, and I had no right to encroach on it and take a potential web-based ease of access (not to mention money-making) opportunity away from them. My domain was ocean sciences and robotics.

Fast forward a decade. I found out that a friend I hadn't seen since we were kids also had stumbled upon the same idea around the same time. He's a good guy, well principled, but was more unscrupulous than I when it came to business. He didn't have any qualms about grabbing any available domain name to be put to use as an indexing site (i.e. landing page) where he got click-through ad revenue. He'd collected something like a hundred thousand common word and common phrase domains, and built it into a multi-million dollar business.

Around the same time, there was growing frustration about domain name squatting. Some big corporations were upset that someone had grabbed a .com domain matching their trademarked company name, and were refusing to release it unless they were paid large amounts of money. Likewise, some small people had legitimately registered and been using a domain, only to have some big corporation try to bully them into giving it up. ICANN was going to hold meetings and discussions about how best to resolve these domain name disputes. I had my noble opinion of course, but I was a nobody in the domain name business. I was not invited. My friend, unscrupulous though he was, was a big player - he was invited.

The point is really driven home if you've ever tried to do business in Asia. The corruption there is so rampant (or at least was a decade ago) that you simply can't do business legitimately. If you try to stick to your principles, you'll just go out of business. You have to pay the bribes if you want to get anywhere. I ran into a similar thing while helping a friend in Chicago deal with some legal trouble about a building he owned. Turns out a lot of the government officials and inspectors there expect bribes. Don't pay them, and they will sink you with delays, violations, and fines. That's what had gotten my friend in trouble - he refused to pay bribes out of principle. (I resolved it by having him hire a law firm to "deal with" the "paperwork", and they paid the requisite bribes.)

This is not to say Trump will be some savior who will fix this corruption. I'm skeptical he is, but I'm not going to dismiss his claim out of hand. I'm willing to wait and see what happens. I'm just saying that it's true that sometimes you have to get your hands dirty playing the game in order to know how it's played and what needs fixing.

The U.S. government screwed this up royally when it put its site for people to get their free credit report on the domain annualcreditreport.com. The credit agencies all set up similar sites with similar domains, which would give you your credit report but require you to submit a credit card and would try to subscribe you to their credit monitoring services. For years, Google searches would return these spoofing sites instead of the real one as the top result, doubtless due to aggressive SEO. It seems to have stabilized on the real one as the top result now, though I don't know if that's due to Google clamping down on SEO exploits, or if they just hard-coded the government site as the top result. All of this could have been prevented if the government set it up as a .gov TLD, since companies can't set up sites under that domain.

Likewise, a .apple, .ibm, .canon, .samsung TLD would prevent spoofed sites. I tend to side with a strong hierarchical structure to domain names (company.com, organization.org, network.net, etc). But not everyone realized the importance of nabbing a .com domain early on, resulting in headaches which have done nothing but make lawyers rich. Granting an organizations-specific TLD if the organization is large enough may be a solution to this, provided you also prohibit said organization from taking over similarly named .com sites like applesucks.com. Once you own a TLD that only you can make sites on, it's clear whether or not a site is your "real" site, so name confusion and trademark dilution claims should no longer apply.

Ever been to http://nissan.com/?

3) There is nothing wrong with hinting you are willing to sell. I'm willing to sell my home for enough money and I still live here. If someone wants to pay me 130% or market (not even an insane amount) I'm out tomorrow. The fact that I would sell for over market doesn't indicate bad faith which is the other thing that needs to be proven.

Hold your horses. Hinting that you're willing to sell is probably the worst possible thing you can do if a trademark owner is trying to take your domain away from you. From ICANN's Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy, the first example of a bad faith registration is: " 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."

Never signal that you're willing to sell, even as a joke. The domain is your baby, and you want it forever. If they offer an amount you're willing to sell for, then take it. But never admit before then that a certain amount would get you to change your mind. When Nissan (the car company) tried to take nissan.com from Uzi Nissan (the computer store owner) who had registered the domain long before Datsun ever began using their Nissan trademark in the U.S., they asked him how much it would take for him to sell. He replied, "A million dollars. Why can't you understand I'm not going to sell." Basically he pulled a Dr. Evil. Back when the phrase "a million dollars" was first coined and the average person made a few dollars a week, it meant a ridiculously huge sum of money. But today it's not that much money.

Nissan's lawyers immediately took the first half of his statement, snipped out the context in the second half, and presented it to ICANN as evidence he was squatting the domain to extort money from the trademark owner. ICANN then decided to take the domain away from him and put it in escrow until the dispute was resolved (eventually in Uzi Nissan's favor years later, though he lost millions because he wasn't awarded legal fees). If he hadn't used that particular phrase, he might have been able to continue using the domain throughout the legal proceedings.

Read up on the UNDRP if this is something you're really worried about.

It's hard to argue you want to use such domain names for your own use, unless you happen to be a Mr. Pepsi - it could be a valid surname after all.

This happened to a man in the 1990s, Mr. Nissan.

http://www.nissan.com/Lawsuit/...

Sounds very much like Nissan Motors vs. Nissan Computer, where Nissan Motors tried to claim a domain registered before the Nissan name was commonly used (they were still naming cars Datsun at the time). Basically Nissan Computer wins case after case but the motor copmpany keeps trying and in the latest move is trying for a federal trademark for the business of computers and accessories.

Judge decides that nobody can use it.

It's still there, and it's still displaying Nissan Computers' page. See for yourself.

IIRC, there are exceptions in trademark law carved out for peoples' names. That is, someone whose last name is Google could not be prevented from using their name as the name of their company. There are likely some nuances to this, such as that the company couldn't bear the exact same legal name "Google, Inc." or choose the name with intent to cause confusion. Two names that existed in separate industries should be considered safe. This case of naming rights on a privately owned service further complicates the spirit of the law, insomuch as a private entity has control of most of the name and can rightfully choose who uses its service.

ICANN at least honors this sentiment for domains. See the case of Uzi Nissan is Nissan Motors v. Nissan Computer, who registered Nissan.com before Nissan Motors. Similarly in nature, Microsoft v. MikeRoweSoft existed, but was settled out of court.

Personally, I'd like to see Google and other services that offer naming of pages to follow similar guidelines: no one can be prevented from claiming their name.

IIRC, there are exceptions in trademark law carved out for peoples' names. That is, someone whose last name is Google could not be prevented from using their name as the name of their company. There are likely some nuances to this, such as that the company couldn't bear the exact same legal name "Google, Inc." or choose the name with intent to cause confusion. Two names that existed in separate industries should be considered safe. This case of naming rights on a privately owned service further complicates the spirit of the law, insomuch as a private entity has control of most of the name and can rightfully choose who uses its service.

ICANN at least honors this sentiment for domains. See the case of Uzi Nissan is Nissan Motors v. Nissan Computer, who registered Nissan.com before Nissan Motors. Similarly in nature, Microsoft v. MikeRoweSoft existed, but was settled out of court.

Personally, I'd like to see Google and other services that offer naming of pages to follow similar guidelines: no one can be prevented from claiming their name.

Any way, it shouldn't be a problem; they could just use a translation of the word 'Gnome' - for example, in Swedish: Nissan. Problem solved.

Uzi Nissan might have an issue with the use of his name:
http://nissan.com/

Uzi Nissan, of Nissan computer fame has been paying the price for years for daring to be born with a name that was later copyrighted.

For the record, they use a hosting provider called SourceDNS, or so the internets claim... (though I cannot find such a provider). If Nissan.com computer is still up, your theotherjohnsmith.totallynotmelgibson.disneyisthenameofadifferentcompany.biz.info is totally safe

I wouldn't buy a Nissan. See http://www.nissan.com/ for why.

Don't want to just burn karma, but thanks for bringing Uzi's story to my attention.

Here's the link for anyone who would like to read baout it:
http://www.nissan.com/Digest/The_Story.php

And yes, Uzi Nissan still holds Nissan.com (it cost him a lot of money though.).

http://www.nissan.com/Digest/The_Story.php See the saga of Uzi Nissan and what happened to him !!!

>With search services, it's quite possible to find hosts that have no domain name at all.

I'll give you one: Nissan.

http://nissan.com/ is Nissan Computer, registered buy a guy whose last name is Nissan, when Nissan cars weren't being sold in the US (they were Datsun).

http://www.nissanusa.com/ is Nissan Motor Co. People seem to be finding which site they are looking for just fine.

Not me, I'm wondering nissanusa.com doesn't lead me to a computer store. Nissan Computers has been around way before Datsun changed their name to Nissan, and at least the computer store is a USA company. He should sue them.....and win.

Depends if you have a product or a company called RightHaven. Just because it belonged to one company doesn't mean there isn't some other company very interested in the name. The most classic example of this would be www.nissan.com which any reasonably person would think took you to the website of the car manufacturer.

There are a lot of more complex cases. Consider nissan.com, where you can go and read all about the lawsuit.

You mean nissan.com, with 2 S, not 3?

Uzi Nissan was selling used cars under the name Nissan in the 1970s, when the large automobile manufacturer known today as Nissan was still called Datsun. You should only know the hell that Nissan Motors put Uzi through over the domain name. That is the reason why I did not buy a Nissan in 2007, and the reason why I won't be buying a Nissan next year.

http://nissan.com/

Domain names are extremely similar to company names. There already exists legal precedent to consider your company name the legal property of the company.

For example: that large company up in Redmond is called Microsoft. Some guy named John Microsoft brings them to court, claiming that he has the legal right to the company name of "Microsoft", since it is his legal name. The courts would disagree, and rule that the name "Microsoft" belongs to Bill Gates & co.

A similar case has been going on for many, many years here, over the domain name nissan.com. Details here.

Here's a pretty high profile example of rightfully holding a domain and having a large corporation try to steal it from you.

They have been trying for years to take away this guy's domain. So far, the courts have sided with the rightful owner.

I suppose the idea now is to take away the site from the first person who had the idea of registering a site with his name and give it to a corporation that happens to have the same name.

You're fucked no matter how much right to your domain name you have.

Nissan Computer Corporation owned by one Mr Uzi Nissan
http://www.nissan.com/

Nissan motors sued him, his company and a third company which had nothing to do with their trademark simply because he was a shareholder.(yes nissan motors is that scummy)
Last I heard it's cost him a million bucks to defend his domain name.

I can't imagine Oracle will sell the domain. If they did tho, the buyer would have to get some sort of understanding about uses that didn't constitute trademark infringement... So I can't see Oracle letting it go without the surviving bits and chunks of Sun attached. Not like they're hard up for cash.

semi o/t, but this site might interest you

The gent has the same last name as a big car company. Sort of bad luck for him. He still has his domain, but out of pocket for lawyers...

That's the big one and I'm constantly confused as to why people demand protections from the commercial sector but then rant and rampage when it's given to them. If you want to open your own website for family use and you call it FacetoFacewithUnity100 - that's allowed! If you want to call it FaceofMe and include thousands of pictures of your face...thats allowed!

Allowed but you still have to put up with barratry.

Seem to recall a problem with Nissan, a computer website. The owner's name is Nissan, but had to fight the automobile company over the site for Trademark Infringement, Trademark Dilution and Cyber-Squatting.

However, the courts have ALWAYS ruled that a person's name is fair use.

This may be true, but this guy's story is an indication of how expensive it can be to defend that fair use.

According to Facebook:

"If others could freely use 'generic plus BOOK' marks for online networking services targeted to that particular generic category of individuals, the suffix BOOK could become a generic term for 'online community/networking services' or 'social networking services,'" Facebook argued in the lawsuit. "That would dilute the distinctiveness of the Facebook Marks."

Of course, the generic suffix "book" that they speak of has long been in the "public domain"; i.e. "Year book" (from which Facebook stole the idea. In fact Facebook used to only be available to people with school-based email addresses). Then there are the other historic generics like textbook, flip book, scrap book, etc and so on.

Too bad that in these cases the courts tend to rule in favour of the rich and famous instead of the fair. People with "Mc" in their names are screwed if they want to start ANY type of business (restaurant or not) because McDonald's has always been an asshole about the issue, and the courts have favoured the asshole. With Nissan things are better, but the legal costs and time (in years, going through the court system) have been horrendous.

In summary: if you're poor your screwed. If you can afford millions of dollars for lawyers then you may be able to get your way.

I would not recommend doing this, regardless of the commonality of the name, ie. Ford, Nissan, Disney. After being sued for $200k for Anticybersquatting for 2 domain names ($100K per trademark violation) and 2 years of court battles, its just not worth it. The poor Nissan family have been fighting this for a long time. www.nissan.com

American justice might be blind, but it know what money smells like. One more reason why we need judicial reform to prevent abuses like this. Of course fighting it wouldn't be worth it, as even if you won, your "winnings" would have only been the ability to continue using the name. Another good example is http://www.nissan.com, where he actually fought and won, at a great price. His name is Nissan, and his computer business and name existed back when the cars were called "Datsun", but they sued anyway. This is another one of those "We are bigger than you, thus more deserving of the domain name than you" cases.

Tell that to the people that get told they cant have a domain name that says 'Disney', even if their name IS Disney...

Unless you're willing to fight tooth-and-nail like this brave soul.

Unless you're called "freecreditreport" I don't see how this affects you.

IANAL but if your name is JohnSmith and you register JohnSmithsPage.com, and end up being sued by John Smith's Brewery, you'd have a fair crack at defending your page. Especially if you put "This page is not associated with John Smith's Brewery in any way" somewhere on your page.

However if your page contains trash talk about John Smith's Brewery, or is obviously trying to fool people into thinking their at John Smith's Brewery's official site, you'd have a harder time convincing a judge. FOR example, check out this site, which still manages to hang on to its domain name despite having the force of a VERY LARGE company's legal army against it.

I remember back in the mid-nineties (couldn't find the story on Google with a cursory search) when Toyota Corp forced a man named Toyota to give up the domain name he had registered long before, toyota.com.

Are you sure this was about Toyota? Maybe you are referring to Nissan... but the domain is still not own by the motor company...

Businesses should be able to protect their trademarks but the process should be fair. Little guys who don't compete in the same market should not get squashed.

Rather than Toyota, the best example to illustrate this principle should be Nissan. The little guy is still holding on, but it's a tough fight.

How would it be different than it is now? For example, with Nissan.com, which is owned by a company that sells computers rather than the Nissan Motor Company. If you use a general name like Milk or one that is used by other people, of course there will be conflicts. Say there are two movies titled Milk. Where would milk.movies go? A hierarchical system like that doesn't help here, unless you have a more complex system with something like milk.2008.movies and milk.otheryear.movies. In any case, you don't just open a browser and type a domain name like milk.movies expecting it to go where you want unless you see it in an ad.

So instead of something like having Nissan.cars and Nissan.computers, why not just have NissanCars and NissanComputers, cutting out the TLD "middleman"? The World Wide Web as it is today doesn't really need a hierarchical system like Usenet has.

And here's Nissan abusing trademark law.

That's not even the worst. I'm sure as hell never buying a Nissan.

Nissan Computer Corp
Nissan Car Company

Chrysler recently announced they were on Twitter, but the name was ChryslerCom or something like that. Squatters beat them to their own name. That's the problem with unique usernames, though. I mean, say your name (because your parents are insensitive clods) actually *is* Chevy... Should you be prevented from being "Chevy" online because a car company holds a trademark on that name? Is it really fair for the courts to just take something away from you and give it to a rich corporation?

No, apparently it's not fair. See http://www.nissan.com/

http://nissan.com/ that story is even more stupid

No. It was this guy!

nissan.com

You should see them quadruple their offer then. It's called hardball.

Or they bring out the lawyers and everybody loses. It wouldn't be the first time, either.

I think this link is more informative about the nissan.com issue.

Its always good to see the underdog win.

http://www.nissan.com/

The other side of this story.

You should see them quadruple their offer then. It's called hardball.

Or they bring out the lawyers and everybody loses. It wouldn't be the first time, either.

I think this link is more informative about the nissan.com issue.

http://www.digest.com/Big_Story.php

That guy was using his last name as well. Didn't go so well for him.

Not sure why it's linking to Digest.com, other than trying to drive traffic to one's site, but here's the actual link

You should see them quadruple their offer then. It's called hardball.

Or they bring out the lawyers and everybody loses. It wouldn't be the first time, either.