Slashdot Mirror
Visa vs. evisa.com In Vegas
wessman writes "In October 2002, Visa (the credit card company) convinced a Las Vegas federal court to prevent the small business JSL Corp. from using the term 'evisa' and the domain 'evisa.com' for its website offering travel, foreign language, and other multilingual applications and services. The court ruled that the website--run by Joe Orr from his apartment-- 'diluted' Visa's trademark, even though the site uses the word 'visa' in its ordinary dictionary definition, not in relation to credit card services. Now, the Electronic Frontier Foundation is helping JSL with an appeal. The EFF has a press release available."
That's like San Fransisco suing eBay...
First post?
I hope that Visa gets e-visa-rated in the ensuing lawsuits.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Aaah...another fine example of a big corporation abusing ones power, not because it is legally viable, but simply, just because they can.
GO EFF, GO GO GO! :-))
I mean, I know this is slashdot, and a million people are going to say the same thing...
but that's rediculous. A VISA is a very, very common international term NOT related to credit cards.
If the site was about any kind of financial transaction providing, I'd say this was completely justified.....
I hate to say it, but I think Visa's got a case. My first thoughts when I see evisa.com are "electronic Visa". There is legitimate potential for confusion here (unlike the Lindows case). Now, you can argue that Visa shouldn't be allowed to trademark dictionary words, and you're probably right, but legally Visa's on solid ground.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
...unless Visa (credit card corp) is planning on going into the travel visa business with a one-card system (all your info is based on the numbered tracks on your card, which reference a central database). Even then, there is no case at current until Visa owns the travel visa process.
I can't believe they convinced a Las Vegas federal court that it was a legit case. It should have been laughed out by the judge in less than 10 minutes. There is no way this should have gotten this far.
Visa is not suing JSL because their website "evisa.com" dilutes Visa's trademark. They are suing JSL because their website dilutes Visa's "e-visa.com" trademark. Which Visa owns. Visa owns the trademarks to both E-Visa and to eVisa. Neither of which is in the dictionary, thank you very much.
EFF should be spending its time on a more worthwhile lawsuit. They'll go down in flames on this one: Visa is dead right.
Judge should rule that unless Visa corp is in the business of distributing entry clearance permits for world nations, they must immediately change their name to something else.
They are diluting the normal outlets for visa applications and work permits.
HOLLAND, MI -- Popular geek news site Slashdot (www.slashdot.org) has come under fire recently for featuring articles on the Visa, Inc. credit card company. Visa has trademarked any combination/permutation of the English letters "v", "i", "s", and "a".
Lawyers from both sides have slated a preliminary meeting and hope to settle outside of court.
Slashdot's head honcho, Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda, was unavailable for comments. Members of his site appear to be concerned about dealing with Visa's behemoth legal team, and plan on purchasing hot grit and goat insurance just to be safe.
Stay tuned as further details from this shocking case come to light.
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
They could sue all the countries of the world for using the term 'visa' to describe papers that allow you to cross international borders.
ivisa.com and myvisa.com
which are also registered on who-is
and where does it end?
bluevisa.com, redvisa.com...
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Visa will lose on appeal. Though eVisa provides SOME services also provided by Visa credit cards, their core business is entirely different and they are using the term "visa" in its common, not proprietary, sense. Unless Visa can produce some proof of eVisa's *intent* to derive value from the Visa mark (through internal communications or similar graphics), they'll lose.
I, for one, cannot imagine how someone might be mislead into thinking that they were utilizing Visa's credit services.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
I didn't know it either :)
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=visa
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
I hope I don't have any trouble with my new website dedicated to internet macaroni.
I'm calling it e-macs.com or I might drop the dash. But it seems like I've heard that
name before...I think it's a text editor, or maybe an IDE, or a browser...
Oh well, I can just claim that they have dilluted their own trademark.
Possibility for confusion is the test, but I'll never understand why a jury system is suitable for criminal offences (entailing possible deprivation of liberty -- very serious stuff) and not suitable for trademark issues. If confusion is the test, why not have a dozen or more impartial people decide if they would be confused? Have all the usual jury safeguards -- each side able to object to a certain number of candidates to get as unbiased a sample as possible, and go from there.
Personally, I'd have to agree with the above poster -- I did originally think electronic Visa, as in the card. But you can't trademark a common word unless it's acquired a secondary meaning linked to the product. This isn't like calling all tissue papers "Kleenex" or all snowmobiles "Skidoo". I'm sure visas (the passport related ones) were around before Visa was, and this business is using the word with a minor adjustment.
Another factor is supposed to be the point of sale. Are visas and Visa transactions done at the same place? No. So the possibility for confusion diminishes yet again.
An official authorization appended to a passport, permitting entry into and travel within a particular country or region.
I thought words in the dictionary weren't copyrightable? Can anyone shed some light on this subject?
See, this is what SHOULD have been in the article summary, since it quite clearly states the issue, rather than the ambigious impression the article summary leaves. That Visa is suing because evisa dilutes the Visa trademark. They're suing because they actually own the evisa trademark as well.
Pretty cut and dried actually.
visa n. An official authorization appended to a passport, permitting entry into and travel within a particular country or region.
So, the site was using the term in its correct usage, and somehow a Las Vegas federal court was not observant enough to notice this? How could this possible dilute the tm of Visa?
Maybe I'm too naive, but shouldn't the justice system work for the benefit of society?
Conversation at the border:
"Do you have a visa?"
"No, I have a mastercard"
boldly going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse
Garbage. E-Visa is not a trademark of Visa. /applied/ for it to be a trademark, but that's not to say it is one -now- for them to be suing under. RTFA.
They may have
On the E-Visa.com website, under Legal it lists their trademarks as:
The trademarks, logos, and service marks (collectively the "Trademarks") displayed on the Visa site are registered and unregistered Trademarks of Visa and others. VISA®, the Three Bands Design Mark®, CLASSIC®, the Comet Design Mark®, the Dove Design Mark®, ELECTRON®, ENTREE®, the Impulse Design Mark®, INTERLINK®, the Network Design Mark®, PLUS®, the PLUS Design Mark®, and It's Everywhere You Want To Be® are registered Trademarks of Visa in the United States and other countries
visa n. 1. An official authorization appended to a passport, permitting entry into and travel within a particular country or region 2. A credit card company who exterminated previous definition..
In Europe visa offers the Visa Electron card. I could see where evisa could be confusing to people thinking it had something to do with Visa's online varification system or the Visa Electron card.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
my last name is visa?
What are those things called that most non-citizens are supposed to get before they come to come to the US? Is it a blue white and gold thingy? Maybe the department of state should check what they are doing in case they upset the Visa group.
See my journal, I write things there
Technology professionals: massive unemployment
Lawyers: massive employment
Lucy You should go into high technology. That's where the future lies.
Charlie Brown Yeah, right. Just hold the football.
Sigs are bad for your health.
Only in the credit card trade, I would imagine. Visa would have to either prove that their eVisa trademark is 'famous', or prove that evisa.com is in the credit card business to win this suit.
This guy is probably screwed, sorry to say. Has the EFF had any actual success at all? I only seem to hear about them losing. I agree with what the EFF is trying to do, but it seems like we're all going to be fucked in the ass pretty soon, the way things are going. I guess I'm just a cynic.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
but I believe the eVisa.com guy could still be saved. The content on the previously-known-as-evisa.com site clearly showcases Passport-related items.
I think the best option for him is to buy the domain ePassport.com (if it's still available).
Doh! I forgot, he will then be sued by MS for 'diluting' MS's cross-site authentication trademark...
I guess he's screwed then... too bad.
Welley Corporation - SLM Scammers
I can see the argument they have for trademark dilution, but they're also accusing them of trademark infringment, cybersquatting, deceptive trade policy, and intentional interference with prospective economic advantage. I don't know what the last one is, but it has "intentional" in it. They'll have a hard time showing that evisa is intentionally doing anything.
The grand jury seems to have agreed with me, too. The case was only approved because of the trademark dilution claim. Visa does own the "EVisa" trademark, so they may have rights to the evisa.com domain.
Can't someone sue Visa for dilluting the English language? I mean talk about consumer confusion, now when a customs official asks for your visa, people think "uh, do you take checks?" I mean here they've taken a perfectly useful word, probably used in some form since the Roman empire, and created widespread confusion among English speakers around the globe.
I wonder what it would cost for an organization like the EFF to launch a pre-emptive dictionary attack on the trademark system, trademarking all English words that aren't already trademarked, the way domain squatters do with domain names.
At first I like the idea of being able to name my company after a fairly common word and then bludgeoning people with the legal system when they use the word... but then I got to thinking:
Won't Apple be able to sue emacs.org?
Trademarks can't stop people from using the names of things, just calling themselves that thing. I can say "JavaTM" (the name sun insists on using every time they write the word... anyway). I can even say "java java java". If I write a program I can say "I wrote this program in Java". What I can't do is call it "JavaWhatever", in which case sun will get their panties in a bunch.
So if slashdot changed their name to "visa", then they would be in trouble. In the interim, they can talk about visa all they want.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Geez, how hard is it to just go to USPTO.gov and look up the evisa trademark?
Visa International Services Association applied for the mark on August 19, 1999. JSL applied for the mark on October 6, 1999. Visa wins.
Visa International Services Association also applied for the mark "e-via" on August 19, 1999.
Visa has the earlier application. Unless evisa.com can claim that their evisa won't dilute Visa's evisa (it clearly does), evisa.com is going down in flames.
Visa convinced a Las Vegas federal court to prevent the small business JSL Corp. from using the term 'evisa' by presenting all court official with visa credit cards to demonstrate their ownership of the visa trademark.
Later that day, the judge assigned to the case was seen in a Jaguar dealership, obviously conducting an investigation into the visa case by using the above mentioned cards. He refused to comment.
Join the elite! Post at score:2! Ghostwheel is online.
REDMOND - Microsoft just filed suit against dictionary.com for the use of the words 'word', the plural of 'window' and 'notepad', which are obviously infringing MSFT's applications.
well, according to The US government which won't let me link to search results (just do a search for evisa), they have both owned trademarks since 1999, with visa corp beating JSL by two months.
Visa also owns 'e-visa' and 'e visa', but not 'e-visa.com' or 'evisa.com'. Interestingly, they only own the TM in one international category IC036, while JSL owns it in IC046. I'm surprised VISA didn't register their TM in every single possible field.
Typed Drawing
--
Word Mark EVISA
Goods and Services IC 042. US 100 101. G & S: COMPUTER SERVICES, NAMELY DESIGNING AND IMPLEMENTING WEB SITES; PROVIDING TRANSLATION SERVICES FOR OTHERS VIA A GLOBAL COMPUTER NETWORK. FIRST USE: 19971227. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19971227
Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING
Serial Number 75816558
Filing Date October 6, 1999
Published for Opposition May 15, 2001
Owner (APPLICANT) JSL Corporation CORPORATION NEVADA 3540 W. Sahara #081 Las Vegas NEVADA 89102
Attorney of Record PARKER H. BAGLEY
Type of Mark SERVICE MARK
Register PRINCIPAL
Live/Dead Indicator LIVE
Typed Drawing
---
Word Mark EVISA
Goods and Services IC 036. US 100 101 102. G & S: Broad based financial services, namely, banking, payment, credit, debit, charge, pre-paid, stored value, cash disbursement, travelers cheque, travel insurance, deposit access, automated teller machine, point of sale, point of transaction services; providing electronic funds and currency transfer services; providing transaction authorization and settlement services; dissemination of financial information via a global information network
Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING
Serial Number 75779435
Filing Date August 19, 1999
Filed ITU FILED AS ITU
Published for Opposition October 10, 2000
Owner (APPLICANT) Visa International Service Association CORPORATION DELAWARE 900 Metro Center Boulevard Foster City CALIFORNIA 94404
Prior Registrations 1065272;1071114;1313366;AND OTHERS
Type of Mark SERVICE MARK
Register PRINCIPAL
Live/Dead Indicator LIVE
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Apparently Visa trademarked eVisa and e-Visa, as stated by a previous poster. But when I look at some whois info... this is what I'm seeing... Domain Name: E-VISA.COM Created on..............: Wed, Apr 22, 1998 Expires on..............: Wed, Dec 03, 2003 Record last updated on..: Mon, Feb 25, 2002 --- Domain Name: EVISA.COM Record expires on 28-Aug-2009. Record created on 27-Aug-1997. Database last updated on 23-Nov-2002 12:04:47 EST. Did Visa just happen to forget to register theit domains for a year or so? Looks like JSL had evisa before Visa did... at least on the Internet.
When I think of Visa, i think of a passport. with I think of a passport, i think of paper with identification info on it that you use to travel from country to country.
Microsoft is whacking Lindows for the same thing. (no news here) Which in a way i can see why, but in another way, I think it's just stupid. There should be a law made where if your company name or product is a word that can be found in the dictionary, you shouldn't allow to register it, period.
Why is it that companies think that they can claim a heavily used word as their own? And why is that every company on earth thinks that someone out there may confuse two similar names?
When i saw the link www.evisa.com, I thought it was a site relating to passports or something along those lines.
*whips out credit card*...humm what's the site for this company. 1st guess: www.mastercard.com. *whips out another card* 1st guess: www.visa.com, and so on. Now if Visa has a credit card named "E-Visa" or "eVisa" then i could see the point for the lawsuit.
A Penny for my thoughts? Here's my two cents. I got ripped off!
While USPTO.gov does state that Visa's Trademark application was roughly 2.5 weeks prior to the defendant's, the JSL (the defendant) application includes dates for first use and first use in commerce:
Visa's application: August 19th, 1999
JSL's application: October 6th, 1999
JSL's First Use/in Commerce: December 27, 1997
This handily beats out Visa's information, which doesn't include these dates at all. IANAL, but as far as I know the date of established use trumps date of application.
In fact, it could even be argued that JSL Corporation (the defendant) could sue Visa for dilution of trademark.
-----------------
Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
See my other comment. There is no trademark on 'evisa.com' or 'e-visa.com'. JSL and VISA both own trademarks on "evisa" in different international categories. VISA also owns a trademark on "e-visa" and "e visa".
Obviously visa should get dibs on the "visa" trademark, but I had never heard of 'evisa' before. Had I seen the word out of context I would have associated it with neither banking or travel, but rather simply thought of it as one of those random company names (accenture, aquent, alcola)
Anyway, in an ideal world, JSL would have evisa.travel, and VISA could have evisa.bank.
To bad ICANN is run by monkies. Ah well.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
ALPHA CENTAURI, Universe--Today when Visa Corp. sued the natural laws of...well...everything in a federal court for infringing on their European trademark of "Visa Electron" the court orded the Universe to cease and desist producing, using, or even acknowlodging the atomic particle formerly known as "electron." Incidentally, the Universe came to a screeching halt everywhere except for Alpha Centauri where the whole Universe is pilled onto one atom with no valence electrons. More news at eleven.
I almost spit my donut out reading this. This is more like 4 Funny not 0 Troll.
JSL has owned the "evisa" trademark in international category ic042 since October of 1999.
VISA has owned "evisa" in ic036 since august of that year. Why they didn't register evisa.com at the same time is beyond me, but in any event, they both have valid claims to the domain name, and JSL registered first.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
This once again shows that our current method of dealing with domain names online is flawed. There needs to be a better way to access the information that is relavent to users. Instead of relying on domain names, the web should be based on AI that is intellegent to distinguish between the intentions of the user, and where they want to go. Not only will this make the Internet more managable, it also can make searching the web alot easier. Just an idea.
www.evisa.com get your electronic visa anywhere around the world. Maybe the INS should get involved and sue Visa for taking the name.
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
It was kind of clever...and obviously not meant to be taken literally. Don't mod if you can't pick up on sarcasm. Yeah, it wasn't THAT funny, but definitely not trolling at all.
Funny, when I was a kid and first heard about visa's (the regular meaning of the word) I was often confused about why a credit card had the same name. I can imagine kids today thinking the same thing about Microsoft Passport: "what, you have to have Windows to travel?"
Since credit cards are often used "to gain entry" to things, couldn't they say Visa is a generic term?
Of course all they have to do is show that "Visa" is "famous" and any common sense goes out the window. *sigh*
Mod me down as a troll if you like, but what do YOU do when you go to coke.com and find out it's not really a site for Coca Cola?
Do you piss and moan, lose interest, tear your hair out, swear off the drink, throw away your Coka Cola memorabilia and scream "FUCK!" 80 times at your dog?
No, you go to Google or Yahoo or somewhere and FIND it. The ONLY time this feels even remotely legitimate is when competing companies have similar names. If I go to Coke.com and find Pepsi ads everywhere, I may well get interested and switch to Pepsi. But if I go there and find information on Coal refining, aside from maybe learning something and wasting 2.5 seconds out of my day, I'll just go FIND it. What a waste of our tax dollars.
If you have it, you own it. Roght? If they missed the bandwagon or didn't think to register the name, then too bad. Quit whining and stop wasting our time, Visa.
Any sufficiently well-organized Government is indistinguishable from bullshit.
Score one for Latin first posts!
All we need to do is abolish corporations, if we get rid of this whole concept that these abstract entities exist and worst of all have rights then this sort of thing would go away. Down with corporate america and down with corporate world. And for those who say software coorps produce this or that, you should remember software corps don't make a single thing, they don't really exist so they can't do anything, people do these things, really honest to god human being who are being paid chump change to MAKE the things corporatation x would have you think was made by corporation x. No, it was made by sally j. Robert E. and Marry h. Not corporation x.
I don't know about you guys but personally if I went to visa.com and found a company or organization related to offering actual visa's as opposed to credit cards, I wouldn't be shocked. That's what should actually be there. Now visacorporation, or visacards, or visacreditcards. or some such maybe. It wouldnt' matter if I went there expecting to find information abotu visa credit cards, it's definition is defined in the dictionary, it's comman language word used millions of times daily in it's dictionary context, visa's patent should be wiped from the books. This case isn't the issue. That visa greased someone's pockets to allow them to patent a word in the public domain is the issue.
Recall the problem that Apple Computers ran into with Apple Records (now Columbia?). Apple was permitted to use their name providing that they stayed out of the music reproduction industry.
That lasted until they ran into products like QuickTime which are heavily reliant upon Media Reproduction.
I suspect in the long run that evisa.com may be able tu survive under the condition that they steer clear of Financial Loan functionality
I had this kind of a thing happen with my domain acbay.net. I was using the term bay to mean a body of water and eBay threatened to take me to court over it! I wasn't doing anything with online auctions. I just didn't want people to have to type www.animalcrossingbay.net....that is just too long! This is crazy...legal departments suck!
Unstable Apps: Our Android Apps Don't Suck
you do know that trademarks and copyrights are two completely different things, right?
--ben
http://hollywoodbitchslap.com/
Registration Number: (NOT AVAILABLE)
Mark (words only): EVISA
Current Status: An opposition is now pending at the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board.
Date of Status: 2001-10-16
Filing Date: 1999-10-06
Registration Date: (DATE NOT AVAILABLE)
Law Office Assigned: TMEG Law Office 107
Attorney Assigned: DIXON JENNIFER HAZARD
Current Location: 848 -TTAB
Date In Location: 2001-10-19
both trademarks are valid, but for different services. as long as one company doesn't use the trademark to offer services for which the other one owns the trademark, there's no infringement.
(insert standard IANAL disclaimer)
--ben
http://hollywoodbitchslap.com/
There are terms that are trademarked outside of the specific trade. Terms such as 'coke' and 'coca-cola' are trademarked pretty much for anything. If I set up a site 'ecoke.com' or 'sellcoke.com', I think I would be in a bit of trouble. OTOH, I would hope that I could set up 'cokesucks.com' or 'cokeistafrontforthecia.com', and, as long as I had it stated on every page that the site was satire, was not affiliated with the Coke corporation, and perhaps add a link back to the coke corporation, that would fall under free speech. I am pretty sure that this would not be the case as the .com TLD seems to be the at-will property of the fuedal corporations.
Which brings us to Visa. As stated, this might be a trademark that transcends a particular trade. On the other hand it is a common word that has a common meaning. Therefore one might find as dozen travel agencies with 'visa' in their name and another few dozen other business with 'visa' in their name. It is broadly the same issue of whether MS can claim 'Lindows' as an infringing mark(i sometimes think MS fights this so hard because Lindows might be a more powerful trademark). Might people think eVisa is a Visa credit card site. Probably, which mean the site should have a disclaimer. Should the credit card company get the site. I don't think so. But Visa the credit card company does have to fight otherwise they may fall victim to the Asprin problem.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
It will be funny if Visa.com will sue State Department,insisting that those stickers in passports will be not be called visa...
available here Tell them what you think.
AC comments get piped to
Reading the 26 page court document you'll find that this guy negotiated the sale of evisa.com for $250k and apparently wanted more so Visa went to court. Also according to the court document, this guy also registered:
usadirect-online.com (USADirect is an AT&T trademark)
picturebookmaker.com (Picturebook is a SONY trademark)
Now usadirect.com is not an AT&T website and usadirect-online.com is no longer registered. The picturebookmaker.com was registered in 1995 so there's more to it but either this guy had a horrible attorney or the judge was asleep the day they explained those two domain names.
While this is a small business, it has a total of one employee... the owner. He also has two corporations. You incorporate in Delaware to keep corporation officers anonymous. You incorporate in Nevada to avoid paying income taxes. So what does this guy do? Incorporate two companies. He owns the Delaware one directly (anonymously) and the Delaware one owns the Nevada one. The Nevada one is the company that holds evisa.com and "operates" it.
Forget for a moment that the two products are un related
If Visa (the CC company) was to dumb in this day and age to not register Visa.com, VisaCreditCard.com e-visa.com evisa.com and any other variations they might use that they don't deserve to have the domain unless they want to pay the owner for it? I mean seriously, it's not like the internet is a new thing and they didn't know about it. If you're to dumb to get your name space, that's too bad.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Arguments about first use and trademark applications ignore what the case is really about: big money vs. everything/anything else. Visa is about money, so they can basically bend the law to suit whatever way they see it.
How long can we ignore the obvious?
In good, normal systems of justice, you have to read the law and you are done. If the law say "yes" judge say "yes". No lawyer for you is needed in simple cases. In English law a precedent is making the system awful. Not only you should read the law - you have to know every applicable precedent for the case. So the lawyer is a necessity. Eliminate precedent law - and you'll get to sane system of other non-english world justice.
Mega-rich-corporation : 1,875,258
Some-guy-at-home : 0
Believe in things of which no person has ever learned
If I write a program I can say "I wrote this program in Java".
Trademarks such as "Java" and "Spamburger" are adjectives that modify a generic noun: "I wrote this program in the Java language after eating a Spamburger sandwich."
Will I retire or break 10K?
--technically, you are entitled to a jury trial for any dispute involving more than 20$. Just another one of those pesky constitutional "theories" that "modern law" ignores in a lot of cases. As to these trademark disputes, it would have to be alleged that somehow someplace someone lost more than 20$. The evisa domain holder could assert that handily. Visa on the other hand would be hard pressed to prove they lost one penny, as evisa doesn't issue credit as a business.
"Amendment VII
In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty
dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a
jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than
according to the rules of the common law."
You couldn't stand a day without a dick up your ass.
Also on page 10, "JSL stated on its Web site that it provides e-commerce, Web site development, and payment services, including online credit card processing. After Visa International filed this suit, JSL removed the reference to credit card processing".
On page 8, defendant says, "[f]or the right price, evisa.com might be available, but I'll have to check with a couple of people, one of whom is in Japan and one of whom is on vacation." He later admitted that this was a false statement because he did not have to check with anybody. He turned down an offer to sell the domain name for $50,000, instead demanding $250,000.
While I suspect the judge's ruling was based more on the fact that the defendant was a sleazy bastard rather than on the merits of the case, I don't think the EFF should have taken the case. My guess is, if the EFF helps him overturn the ruling, he will turn around and sell the site to Visa. He's just using the EFF to get free counsel for his profit venture.
Words by companies that become so popular that they enter the common language of people also develop certain legal protections for people who want to use them.
For example, the company Xerox became the term for copying a document, such was their popularity. And I recall someone winning a lawsuit over using the word, arguing that people in every day usage said "I'm going to Xerox this document", which turned out to be true, and Xerox lost the suit.
Same with Federal Express. It isn't uncommon for someone to hear "I'm going to FedEx this over", which is why Federal Express now calls itself FedEx, to associate more strongly with the popular contracted use of its name.
So it is always important to assess this avenue when dealing with companie names. Think of all the companies sued by Apple over the name Apple in a product or company title. That has to be the worst example of all - Apple is a word in such broad usage that there is no way they should have won a suit.
Also, again with regards to an Apple product name, Apple didn't deem it fit to sue Compaq over the iPaq product, which has the exact length and format of the iPod name brand.
Obviously there is DEFINITELY a bullying consideration when suing a company, otherwise Apple would have had a strong case suing Compaq over the name, but didn't, but they've sued a bunch of smaller companies in this regard.
In fact, it could even be argued that JSL Corporation (the defendant) could sue Visa for dilution of trademark.
And if the win, I say that's exactly what they need to do. Give a big company a slap in the face for a change, and make clear the ludicrous nature of "modern intellectual property" laws while they're at it.
Of course, the chance of JSL winning is slim. Seriously, who do you expect an Honest, Law-Abiding American Judge (TM) to believe? Your friendly neighbourhood credit card company (which, incidentally, has left this large briefcase full of bills beside yr'honor's desk), or some weird organization that helps for-in-ers get into the good ol' USA?
There are a couple of stories maybe getting mixed up in this discussion.
The first story is about VISA being involved in a classic reverse-cybersquatting action.
The second story is about the most recent ruling in the case, which involvesonly the "dilution" claim, and basically claims that EVISA "dilutes" VISA because "it contains the VISA mark in its entirety". (See the full Court Order on the eff.org site or on 3Dtree.com.) This ruling if left unchallenged could result in a considerable consolidation of Internet domains in the hands of holders of "famous" common-word marks. This is a separate issue from arbitrary coined words like "Kodak". Allowing "Kodak" to control
commercial use of the word "kodak" is obviously less problematic than allowing VISA to control commercial use of the word "visa". Or it should be obvious.
The EFF is NOT assisting JSL with the lawsuit as a whole. It is only assisting JSL in trying to get the most recent ruling overturned. As for the other charges in the lawsuit as a whole, the EFF is not involved, nor should it be, because: 1. The EFF has its hands full with the continuous assualt on cyber-rights so well chronicled on slashdot day after day, and 2. the fact that a huge corporation is using the courts to try to bankrupt a small company by issuing complaint after complaint, is not news, and in any case not an issue particular to the Internet.
Still, if the EFF was as powerful as, say, the NRA, VISA would never have even filed this suit. Anyone here not join yet?
I for one don't object to Visa defending their trademark. There is nothing per se wrong with a large company sueing a small one. If I'm hurting their mark, then I deserve to be punished, small or large. Not only that, the "dilution" claim is not on its face completely absurd and abusive. This is mainly because the Federal Antidilution Act is so difficult to interpret that even different federal judges have had major differences in interpretation. We believe that EVISA does not dilute VISA, and we'd like to be able to present the facts supporting this position in a trial. We think our position is the correct one. We disagree with the current ruling because it denies JSL the chance to present evidence at a trial, and because it gives VISA and other common word trademark holders broad powers not intended by Congress.
The other charges: cybersquatting and infringement are a blatant abuse of the court system. We have to defend ourselves, and VISA is making this as expensive as possible. They are also refusing to cooperate as much as they can. If VISA really believed they had any kind of case for cybersquatting they could have submitted the case to WIPO at any time for a quick and cheap resolution. However according to the rules, they would have clearly lost. So instead they literally decided to make a "federal case" out of it, 2 years after JSL started development of evisa.com, and 4 years after development of evisa-jp.com. In all of those years, Visa never sent a cease-and-desist letter or in any way complained about JSL's use of EVISA - because VISA was not in fact concerned about infringement. They're just after the domain. Their strategy was to get a registered mark for "EVISA" and then claim that we were infringing that. When we opposed their registration, they sued us within weeks.
As for playing by the same rules, Visa has subpoenaed me and others, but has refused to allow us to subpoena the person or persons most knowledgable on their side. They have demanded hundreds of documents from us, including virtually all business records and emails (which we provided), yet they have simply refused to provide virtually any important documents to us. They have not divulged one single email. Of course, we can then appeal to the judge to make them comply, but the judge then stayed discovery pending ruling on the summary judgement motions.
It would be nice if there was some way of preventing these kinds of tactics, since they give inordinate power to large entities at the expense of the law. But that would be another discussion.
-Joe Orr
JSL
Additionally, corporations who don't respect the internet (and other new technologies) and its rules, do not deserve the benefit of it's offerings.
This page shows that certain "famous" marks are extremely protected.
I can't believe that they don't have to prove confusion or show competition between them and the defendent.
Dont let the visa corporation come to South Australia; where a rather successfully campaign promotes the Visitor In South Australia (VISA).
Firstly Visa is a financial institute with daily transactions worth billions of $$s. So say what you want but thats a big responsibility.
If for some reason some one goes to evisa.com and enters his Credit Card details thinking that its a VISA affiliated site then VISA's is in big trouble.The e prefix is very confusing. We already have efiling, egovernment, ebusiness so Naturally its understandable that Users may confuse evisa as electronic-visa
Now having said that, I belive that since VISA is such a big business, they should have reserved such obvious variations of their URL long time ago
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
OK. A company has made a trademark out of, and spent millions on a common usage word to make that word make people think of their company when they use it. WTF am I thinking they have a case? It's because they have been successful at it. eVisa should not lose this, but the grounds on which they win the case are going to be oh, so technical, that I'm sure a win is not going to feel that good
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