Trademark Law

Defendants has responded Juan Pablo Vazquez to the Dell ACPA / Cybersquatting / Typosquatting /  Domain Tasting Complaint.  CyberLaw Professor John Levine correctly notes that Defendants have failed to offer much substantive in defense to the Dell domain tasting and cybersquatting lawsuit.

(Jone Levine's post re Defendants Respond to Dell?s Anti-Tasting Suit).

Their main argument is that they?re just the registrar, and deny Dell?s claim that the registrants are fakes made up by the registrar. They also argue that they?re not infringing, they didn?t use the names in question in commerce, they were just acting as helpful search engines, you know, like Google or Yahoo. (The comparison to Google and Yahoo is theirs.)  They cite some cases to support the argument that registration per se without using the domain doesn?t infringe, which is correct, although it appears that all of the domains were pointed at web sites full of ads. They also argue that the domains weren?t identical to Dell?s marks, hence they weren?t counterfeiting the trademarks.  Finally, defendant Netrian Ventures claims that it does no business in the US, and the main defendant?s wife, who received the summons, doesn?t work for them, hence they weren?t served.  The thrust of all of these arguments isn?t to deny that the defendants committed the actions they?re accused of, but rather to argue that what they did doesn?t precisely match what the law forbids.

See John's previous post which lends support to the possibility that the registrants may be 'stooges' for the real domain tasters.

Domain tasting continues to draw attention in the blogosphere and beyond. Trademark owners and their interest groups are starting to realize that  domain tasting is a serious problem created by ICANN's  policies concerning  the 5 day grace period where a registrant can return a domain and get their money back.  This allows highly funded registrars and domain monetization companies to 'taste' the domains for existing web traffic before deciding whether to retain their registrant status. These monetization interests have not interest in the domains beyond the traffic and adwords style links they place on the sites. The domains that are retained by the domain tasters are rarely if ever developed into 'real' web sites, resulting in a glut of junk web sites cluttering up the web.  Some of the sites that get picked up by the domain tasters include trademarks owned by other companies such as Dell.   

You can read the complaint and see more cybersquatting commentary on the Dell lawsuit here.