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Man Named "Shell" Loses Domain To Oil Giant

Posted by timothy on from the spoiled-brats-with-lawyers dept.

angkor writes: "'A German court has ruled that oil giant Shell has more right to the www.shell.de internet domain name than an individual named Shell who had already registered the name.' It's like the old saying: your name may be McDonald, but you can't open a restaurant named McDonalds ..."

2 of 51 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Aren't search engines used more...? by monksp · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I think you'd be utterly amazed. Anyone I know that isn't deeply computer savvy does just that. And heaven help them if it points to a different company. ``I didn't know that foo.com did contract assassination, too! I thought they were just a bakery!''.

    And really, sometimes the search engine doesn't help, either. Until I saw multiple people do it, I always thought people inputting company.com into an engine's search field was just a joke. And then they get confused again. ``Looking for Foo Baking online doesn't work. I put foo.com into Google, and it only brought up links to foo.com, and at the store they told me it was foo-bakers.com.''

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    -- My work here is done. If you need me again, just admit to yourself that you're screwed, and die.
  2. Corporations are favored in the courts over names by buckeyeguy · · Score: 2, Interesting
    It's no surprise that the courts would favor the corps. in these web cases, because they've been favoring the corps. in other name-ownership cases for years.

    Ever hear of 'Taylor California Cellars' wine, or other Taylor wines? Originally, the name came from a family winery in NY state, but years ago the head of the family sold the name 'Taylor' off to some big conglomerate. Years later, when a grandson of this guy put labels on his own wineries' wine, with 'Walter S. Taylor proprietor' or some such innocuous tag in the small print, the conglomerate sued him! And the courts agreed with the big company, several times.

    Since then, Walter just blacks out his name on the labels... "Walter S. ------" (or did... seems Walter S. passed away this year).

    Other such cases exist, I'm sure, as does the Nissan, Shell and other examples above.Moral: it might pay to get a serious trademark registered if you really want a domain name, but in the end, if a big company wants it, you're screwed.

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    I'd have a personalized plate on my car, but "toxic bachelor" won't fit into 7 letters.