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The Neverending Sex.com Story
fwc writes "This has to be the story which will never end. Back in 1996, Steven Cohen "stole" sex.com from its original owner (Gary Kremen) by forging a letter to Network Solutions asking for the domain to be transferred to him. Subsequently Kremen sued to get the domain name returned. Through what seemed to be a neverending parade of lawsuits and judgements (Documented on slashdot here, here, here and here, and also in several other places), Kremen finally got his domain back and Cohen was ordered to pay $65 million in damages. In the latest twist, Cohen is asking the US Supreme Court to overturn the verdict of the lower courts by claiming that he owned the sex.com trademark prior to Kremen registering the domain. This should prove interesting since it looks like the filing at the USPTO occured two years after the domain was originally registered."
There is a town in New Zealand called Urenui. In Maori, this means "big penis". But no-one thinks it funny, compared to names of towns with quite innocent derivations...
Because, this is a landmark case involving such topics of debate as whether a domain name is owned by registrar or registrant, whether virtual, incidental prior art can trump a patent, and why the hell they'd kill Trinity at the end of the movie. Maybe this should be relegated to yro.slashdot.org, but hey, it's early in the AM :)