unix.com Wins Domain Dispute

kyler writes "Apparently unix.com was able to afford the lawyers to fight off X/open from stealing their domain name in the wipo domain dispute. If the domain unix.com doesn't violate the UNIX trademark, what gives them the right to take unix.net away from me and unix.org away from Michael? This is ludacris" We had the story about unix.org losing their battle so this is a Good Thing.

Comments

They have this backwards

[SpatchMonkey]

Although many cases of domain disputes are clear cut, such as the one between etoy and etoys, where one should be allowed to keep their domain, this is quite different.

You'll notice that the unix.com domain was registered by these people in May 2000. Obviously they knew the word "Unix" has been a trademark of the X/Open group for many years.

For them to register unix.com is incredibly misleading to anyone who may expect an offical Unix company website there.

The administrators of unix.org and unix.net have more rights to their domain names as they are not flying under the banner of a "Unix company".

So, it's another stupid domain resolution. They just seem to have it completely backwards!

Re:They have this backwards

[SpatchMonkey]

I think the problem there is that the Unix trademark has been passed around quite a lot through different organisations with differing opinions on how the use of the trademark should be enforced.

The point is, though, that it has been a trademark for years -- even if X/Open only acquired it relatively recently.

Also, probably even more importantly is the usage of such a domain name for email communications. While a website such as www.unix.com carries some weight as an official Unix source, email sourced from that domain carries an even higher regard.

It's easy to forget that a domain name can represent the whole public image on the Internet, not just the website.

Re:They have this backwards

[Hittite Creosote]

I didn't see anyone claiming it was a squat, merely that it was illogical. www.unix.com would (to most people anyway) indicate a company, and where one company has the trademark to unix, you'd expect to find them there. On the other hand, unix.org or unix.net would indicate non-commercial companies discussing unix. So to have the decisions go in the opposite direction indicates that the whole thing isn't decided by logic, it's not decided by who gets there first, it's decided by hordes of rampaging lawyers.

This is a big deal why?

[shimmin]

DNS is obsolete. Someone looking for unix info might type in www.unix.com, but experience has taught anyone who has surfed the net more than 30 minutes that randomly typing in URLs is a chancy way of finding what you want.

Far more useful is to type what you're looking for into Google. Lately, the I'm Feeling Lucky button has just been uncanny.

Why fight over namespace when the real value is in Googlespace?

Re:This is a big deal why?

[davew2040]

I believe that these days it's not so much an issue of pragmatism as it is an issue of prestige. Perception plays an important role in marketing (as in politics). While it may not be as huge of a deal for individuals, this is the sort of thing that companies jump at.

Hah!

[Greyfox]

Notice the WIPO carefully not addressing the respondent's assertion that the word "UNIX" has become generic? It wouldn't do for that lot to effectively take a trademark away from someone. Why, if one of the outcomes of taking a complaint to the WIPO was that your trademark might be invalidated, people might stop abusing them so much. Lower case load equals less tasty UN funding. The WIPO likes its funds! They don't want that! So even though the respondent makes a damn good argument that the word "UNIX" has become generic, the WIPO just says "Oh we're not going to address THAT issue, but we'll find for the respondent anyway!"

The respondent makes a pretty good argument that the word "UNIX" has become generic and every computer professional I've ever known has used the word in a very generic fashion. I wonder if a preemptive lawsuit might be filed to have the trademark removed from the word...

Re:Molson lost their dispute too

[WEFUNK]

Actually, the follow-up to the canadian.biz case (which was part of the same original post discussing the unix.org dispute) was posted a couple of weeks ago, just not on the front page.

In summary, the original registrant (a Canadian citizen) was able to convince a Canadian judge that "Canadian" does not mean beer alone and was able to block Molson from hijicking the canadian.biz domain.

In his decision, the judge stated that "simply because a domain name is identical or similar to a trademark name should not result in the transfer of the domain name to the trademark owner. In my view, unless there is some evidence that the use of the domain name infringes on the use of the trademark name, a person other than the owner of the trademark should be able to continue to use the domain name." He was also critical of ICANN's definition and use of the "bad faith" criteria.

It appears that ICANN and the registrar have respected the court decision, as the whois information has been updated with the original registrant's correct name and information.

Between this and the contrast between the unix.com and unix.org cases, it certainly proves that ICANN is inconsistent in their rulings, and aren't considered (by at least one court) to have a very good handle on trademark law. Hopefully these decisions can be used as inspiration/precedent for the unix.org people to appeal so (just maybe) we can see two good news follow-ups from one bad news slashdot post.

Shell

[srichman]

"Shell" is a generic term.

What Shell are we talking about here? The oil company? Is it really that generic? Does anyone in the world say, "I'm going down to the Shell station," when in reality they're going to BP?

Re:What's `ludacris'

[SlySpy007]

Boy...and here I used to read this site since I thought it was a center for intelligent discussion of all things scientific. Now I know it's just a bunch of 15 year olds who think that the name of a no-talent pop artist is the correct spelling of a word. Thanks for re-affirming my belief in the intelligence of humanity!