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U.S. Cybersquatting Law Goes Global
typecast writes: "Better bone up on Bulgarian trademark law before you register your next domain name. A U.S. federal court has ruled that laws protecting trademarks in foreign countries apply under the American Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) of 1999. (Note to the U.S. registrants of Quartz.com: watch out!)"
Sorry, but if you register some domains and then hope to extort thousands out of it, you deserve to have it taken from you. I know that the law can and will be twisted by lawyers (remember all lawyers are evil scumbags, they will screw you for their own gain at every chance they get.. no, I'm not biased). The implications of this are designed for good intentions... What if a US moron was trying to extort cash out of a poor company in the country that was formerly known as the USSR for his domain name? Granted anyone with 1/3'd of a brain can come up with a workable replacement..
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
where did freedom go again? isn't this almost like killing capitalism? i have three domains right now, and i'm not ready to launch sites for two of them. does that mean someone with a company name of the same type can just take it?
Shouldn't the correct title of the article be something like "Spanish Law coming to US?". This is most definitely not a case of US law going overseas.
Remember, it might be a shock to some people but to whole world does not revolve around the USA.
It is an EU country, so it's less surprising. While I don't like the laws, we have been making a lot of laws and treaties with other countries, and the EU in paticular that are designed to protect US patents, copyrights and trademarks. Overall, its the result of Microsoft and the others trying to inflict their copyright laws, EULA's and such on the global market, only to have the global laws come back home to us. As a side note, IANAL, but I believe British copyright and trademark claims have always been recognized in the United States, and this is basically an extension to other countries. I think the base law is flawed, as are the laws that allow big corporations to take away valid websites from individuals or small companies, but the extension into the greater world doesn't seem that surprising to me.
You know, eventually we may not be able to dial up on to the net anymore because some evil corporation copyrighted the handshaking noise that it makes when you dial in.
Or, dialing up will violate cable modem company's rights to sell you cable service. What the hell.
Is this just some sick and twisted attempt to perform a legal DDoS on some poor, unsuspecting, bulgarian quartz company? For shame.
In other news, this sucks, BUT I can't see it being used very often as most foreigners are just as ignorant to our trademark laws as we are to theirs.
__________________________________________
Take comfort in your ignorance.
Grandmaster Plague
Quartz.com doesn't need to watch out, Quartz is a word in the dictionary.
This is a different area of law.. remember sting.com? I think he ended up coughing up the cash for that one.
I think the judge did the right thing in this case, the term Barcelona is commonly understood to refer to the Spanish city of Barcelona. But this shouldn't be based on possession of a "trademark"... there's really no trade involved. It's the name of a large city, this fact should supersede registered rademarks anyway... "culture supersedes commerce" would be a nice rule :-).
Well, looks like it's now easier to understand women than it is to understand the laws :)
WTO and WIPO will make sure that each and every European country will have to implement the same laws to keep Disney happy.
After all, the US is a member of WIPO, and as such, is somewhat required to engage in these IP-law "harmonization" practices. Other countries will also be doing the same thing for our laws (extrateritorial DMCA jurisdiction... what has the world come to!).
"In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe." -- Carl Sagan, Cosmos
God bless, what will happen next?
Understand, this is a novel thought for some USians
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Did the judge just look to Spanish law to help make his point, or did he specifically say that Spain had jurisdiction over the case?
If the former, so what? Judges are guided by all sorts of things in their opinions. It's only in the application of the laws of the judge's jurisdiction that stare decisis applies.
If the latter, why? The precedential effect will be in the choice of law, and why Spanish law was chosen over the ACPA is vitally important. (I get the impression that Spanish law was used merely to determine whether "Barcelona" was protectable by the ACPA.)
What a lovely portrayal of the Republican party.
There have to be a lot better submissions in the box than this one. Blame the new subscription service?
I am with Robertson on this one.
The Internet is not a Dewey Decimal System library. The indexing and categorization of information, as it's manifested in the meaning in URLs, is a natural process. It happened due to geeks being funny, people trying to make money, and so on. We have the wonderful histories of sites like www.whitehouse.com, which brings up the question - is it true that people who want information on the web about the White House would not want to see a porno site? I don't think so.
Protection from surprise on the Internet should not be the realm of the government, but the realm of the individual.
Goat sex free since 2001
Quartz.com has nothing to worry about, at least not from this law. Quartz J.S. cannot claim a trademark on "quartz" for its crystal, as it's either generic (if it's made from the mineral) or likely to confuse (if it isn't). On the other hand, quartz.com appears be a U.S. trademark (since adding ".com" to a generic name apparently creates something unique) for the National Scientific Co.
As one poster said, the domain name system isn't the dewey decimal system of the web anyway. A web address doesn't have to be more descriptive than a brick and mortar store's physical street address. If you're stuck with "ambrosiasw.com" instead of just "ambrosia.com," you won't go out of business. Customers will find your website if you include the address on advertisements and products. Besides, blindly typing in URLs in the hope of finding the product you're looking for is a hit and miss method of surfing.
So according to this genius of a judge, now I have to do a worldwide search of trademarks before picking a domain name? Wonderful...
I happen to possess several state trademarks. After about 5 years, I plan on registering them as federal trademarks. What would be the result if someone in some far off land has the same trademark in their country? Would it be reasonable to assume that I would ever KNOW about that trademark? My state granted me the mark here, shouldn't they have checked first?
Confusing... very confusing
I mean, it is a city in Spain, right? And there is a reason every country has a TLD, right? What do they need a .com for? Are they an American company?
Quartz J.S. is the biggest producer of soda-lime, crystal, neutral glass and crystalline. The company has traditions and experience in the production of different sorts colour and colourless glasses with high quality in order to satisfy the clients. In august, 1999 Quartz J.S become a private company. Sofia Intercommerce Ltd. is the only dealer represented Quartz Company all over the world. Photo gallery Today Quartz J.S. produces: Articles of 24% lead crystal glass with high quality - a wide range of hand-blown exquisite glasses, vases, fruit-bowls, ice buckets of different series and sorts. The hand cutting makes them really valuable. Lighting fixtures emphasize an aesthetic and snugness of each home, office, hotel and restaurant. The chandeliers, bracket lamps, table lamps, lampions are complete with own lampshades - one-layer glass, two-layer opal glass, frosted, with different decoration. Antiwetting, antidusting and signaling lamps. Tableware of crystalline: plates, fruit-bowls, ashtrays, utensils, etc.
update comments set karma=-1, reason='offtopic' where sid=26315
Nevertheless, at the least there are no trademark "rights" available to protect under Spanish law in the mere name "Barcelona," so this decision is based on literally nothing.
< ON-SOAPBOX rant_level=3>
This is the EXACT REASON why I continuously plead, beg, cajole, threaten, etc. all those in the tech community to get involved politically and legally. Lawyers and judges who do not understand technological and/or intellectual property rights (and believe me - those lawyers and judges are in the overkwhelming majority) pose clear and present dangers to the legal framework controlling the tech world because these people do not understand the issues enough to make informed decisions and do not (and cannot) comprehend the consequences of the positions they advocate and decisions they make. Each of us has a responsibility to educate these people to ensure that the law evolves in a way that fairly addresses the interests of not only the techies but society as a whole.
< /ON-SOAPBOX rant_level=0>
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
In the world of land ownership, squatters are peole who use land that they do not own. By that standard, a cybersquatter would be a person who uses a domain name that isn't registered to him. A so called 'Cybersquatter' who registers a domain name with the the expectation that someone else will want to use it is like a real estate speculator, who buys land with the hope of selling it later. Cyberinvestor would be a better term.
soon to be an endangered species in moscow, the rate they are being shot...
that is why they have their own fucking country codes. Le Monde doesnt have any right to lemonde.com because they can get lemonde.fr. This whole internet thing is a crock of shit. Fucking morons. The whole world is made up of dipshits. Sadly i'm a part of this world (minus the dipshit part although others could argue).
Be that as it may, there are certain individuals who may be innocent in the matter, and find themselves in a whole heap of trouble down the road if they failed to do the research needed for a new domain name.
On February 25, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and four law school clinics announced the launch of a website and project that has been established to educate Internet users about their rights online. The Chilling Effects Clearinghouse provides detailed information about the legal rights of Internet users regarding "cease-and-desist" letters (letters sent from entities claiming violation of copyright or trademark and other grievances and threatening legal action if the violating party does not cease and desist). The project currently provides basic legal information on issues like copyright and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, trademark and domain names, anonymous speech, and defamation.
The Chilling Effects website includes a forum for Internet users to post their cease-and-desist letters to an online clearinghouse. Students at the participating law clinics will review the letters and annotate them with links to explain applicable legal rules. The four Internet law clinics currently involved are Harvard, Stanford, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of San Francisco, and the project is expected to grow to include additional law schools.
Posted letters will remain online in a searchable database that interested parties can consult to find information that relates to their particular situation. "The Internet makes it easier for individuals to speak to a wide audience, but it also makes it easier for other people and corporations to silence that speech," said Wendy Seltzer, Fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, who created the project and website. "Chilling Effects aims to level the field by helping online speakers to understand their rights in the face of legal threats."
Similar tangant but...
How about companies like namezero who let you register a doamin name for free and then after a year make you pay them. You can't take your registration needs elsewhere because now they own your domain name even though they have no claim to it other than you, and you no longer want to use their services. So, what about getting the domain that you've been using fairly back without having to use that company that you foolishly started up with?
Sorry, I just made this mistake and namezero happens to be telling me they'll take away my domain if I don't pay even though it hasn't been anywhere near the year that I was promised. And I don't know what choice I will have other than pay them because my domain is now in their name. Aren't they basically squatting because they know there is a buyer, me, who wants the domain?
I support the rights of corporations to protect their intellectual property, including rights to domain names containing trademarks. However, I don't think they should retain the right to those domains if they don't pursue them within a certain period. How did this retroactive ownership come about, when it doesn't exist anywhere else that I'm aware of in IP law? If company A produces a product called "tradenameA" but doesn't actually go forward with the process to own that trademark, in everything other than domain names they are just out of luck. If company B decides to trademark "tradenameA", company A doesn't get to sue to demand that it be given up, especially not years later. All company A gets to do is seethe.
Why can companies with established trademarks wait for years and years without registering a domain - which they were free to do at any time until someone else grabbed it - and then successfully sue to get the domain only after a third party got the ignored name? I'd give a company six months to a year after registering the trademark to have first option on all unused domains with that trademark, but after that their inaction would leave affected domains forever out of their legal grasp. Throw in a similar grandfather period for every other company starting from a fixed date, to cover all old trademarks that haven't yet been pursued. Past that date, their rights to that name are the same as anyone else, first-come first-served.
Especially now that large corporations can be their own registrar, there is just no possible excuse for them not pre-emptively registering any possible desired, unused domain name. For ($30/month? IIRC), any company can register every possible variant of a trademark they like, from common spelling errors to "-sucks" &etc. But if they don't take action, they give up their rights to future action. Simple as that.
ps - anyone want to help the process along with a GPL home registrar solution? Just download, compile, pay your monthlies, and you're ready to register vanity domains for all of your friends, co-workers, pets, to your hearts content. I'm sure there are some other requirements, but I'd suspect a large number of ISPs and decent sized companies and non-profits would qualify.
-reemul
You're just jealous 'cuz the voices talk to *me*
The are numerous examples of cities in different countries with the same names. Particularly between the UK and USA. Two obvious examples are London and Birmingham. Who gets the birmingham.com domain? The one in England, or the one in Alabama?
I hope America has freedom of speech someday.
My appologies, it was there last time I checked.
How long will it take for the XML namespace standard of using URI's as the global identifier to take hold for trademarks? What the trademark people need is a globally unique way of defining trademarks, why not copy the XML way of making globally unique id's?
e.g.:
http://Coca-cola.tm
http://Coca-cola.tm/Coke
.US is reserved for the U.S:. .com is for world wide generic purpose commercial (or should be), or trade mark, or protected name (cultural name for example?).
In no way it is reserved for U.S. resident or firms.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
I'm counting on Sealand to pass some copyright laws that allow me to obtain all the good names ;)
"We shall show mercy, but we shall not ask for it" -- Winston Churchill
A U.S. federal court has ruled that laws protecting trademarks in foreign countries apply under the American Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) of 1999.
This sure doesn't look like something a US federal court can decide by itself... Seems _way out_ of their jurisdiction. Let's see how other countries take this first, before we jump to conclusions.
Now evey two bit retardo government that has some grief with the US can control our domain names. France, for example, could pass laws giving the domain names of Anti-nazi violaters to the state or whatever and end thier whole case against Yahoo.com quick as can be.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
I own a domain that I purchased 2 years ago. I didn't start using it until 3 months ago. Two months ago a trademark was filed for the phrase in my domain name. I don't want to put the URL here b/c of bandwidth concerns but it's a sports domain. Should I fear losing the domain in arbitration?
Perhaps Barcelona (the city) would be better served with barcelona.sp, barcelona.city.sp, or barcelona.(spanish for city).sp., or perhaps even barcelona.gov (admittedly, most .gov addresses are referring to US-centric governmental entities). .com domains are (ostensibly) for commercial entities; hence, a travel portal would, in fact, be appropriate. In this case, the intended naming structure should (IMHO) be used as a guide.
The big problem with this approach is that most of the internet user base doesn't know about this naming structure. Most users think of .com as the only TLD, and append .com automatically; indeed, I have done so myself several times, knowing full well what I meant. Look at the popularity of www.whitehouse.com, www.nasa.com, and other such domains as evidence of this. The case for ruling in favor of the city of Barcelona is best made with an argument about the {customs, expectations, ignorance, stupidity} of the users.
Just my two cents.
"Make it ten--I am only a poor corrupt official."
--Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains), Casablanca
There are countries whose top-level-domain is an abbreviation of the countries name in its native language.
.es, like españa. Not .sp.
The toplevel domain for Spain is
I guess they already have taken an appropriate domain, but do not agree with a company using the city's name for their own commercial gain...
What was the point of singeling out Bulgaria in this post? The article did not mention it. Actually its trademark law is much less restrictive than the US one, last I checked. The poor Bulgarians are the screwed ones because they probably have to comply with US regulations on a reciprocial base.
OK this is about the stupidest thing i have ever heard. I register a domain name (like quartz.com) I put my website up. And all of a sudden a bunch of stupid lawyers knock on my door and say that thier client wants my domain name so I have to give it to them. Is that right?
There's one thing that people are failing to realize: The US has copywrite, trademark, and patent treaties with other nations. These treaties require all parties to honor the other nations' trademarks, copywrites, and patents. This is often taken advantage of by US companies that do not wish to go through the lengthy process of applying for these in the US (as I recall, mvp.com tradmarked their name somewhere in Africa).
By upholding foreign tradmarks in cybersquatting cases, all the courts are doing is honoring treaties we already have.
Opinions are not Informative, though they may be Insightful or Interesting.
Does this lawsuit set a precendent that someone could be fined $100K under the ACPA for foreign trademark violations, or does the precendent only extend to loss of one's domain name?
If someone can get fined $100K (instant bankruptcy for most people - by the way, this HAS actually been levied in some US cases!) for violating another country's trademark - the Internet has become a very dangerous place to be. Having to worry about every jurisdiction in the world and holding yourself to the standards of the most restrictive one is untenable.
Well I guess it's only fair US citizens get subject to foreign laws, since we seem to make people from outside the US (Sklyarov) responsible for obeying US law even while in Russia.
Best way to kill the Internet - make all of it subject to every countries laws (including Taliban controlled Afghanistan - lets be "inclusive").
Then everyone will be forced to go back to watching TV instead of using the "subversive" Internet.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Could Brazil sue Amazon.com from improper use of their trademark? People wanting to know about the Amazon might go to amazon.com.
Just like the [former] owners of barcelona.com, amazon.com profits from their use of a foreign trademark, or at least they try to.
Fact 1: Virtually every word is trademarked, be it Alpha to Omega or Aardvark to Zulu, most many times over. MOST share the same words or initials with MANY others in a different business and/or country. For example, the World Trade Organization (WTO) shares its initials with six trademarks - in the U.S. alone (please check). Conflict is IMPOSSIBLE to avoid.
Fact 2: The authorities steal words that belong to everybody and give them to Big Business - because domain names were not designed to be trademarks. Ask Paul Mockapetris, creator of Domain Name System. He was asked, what do you wish you had invented? His reply, "A directory system for the Internet that wouldn't be controlled by the politicians, lawyers and bureaucrats."
Fact 3: The UN World Intellectual Property Organization and the US Department of Commerce are hiding the simple solution to trademark and domain name problem. Please see at WIPO.org.uk - nothing to do with the United Nations WIPO.org.
For a Java programmer, your sig:
/.
for i = 1 to 22:print chr$((asc(right$(left$("jkhunlqCxnvkhoov1fr1xn", i), 1))) - 3);:next
looks extremely basic-ish. I for one would not have had the nerve to post this to the computer-language Middle East that is
--
E_NOSIG