Intellectual Property

What do the domains my-gofer.biz,.info.,.net,.org,and .info have in common? Sears Brands, LLC does not have rights to any of them. They apparently thought they did, however, and took the case before an arbitrator. MyGofer is the chosen name and trademark of Sears’ shopping service. Their main website is mygofer.com Sears …

In a rather interesting domain dispute, the Sutherland Institute, a right-wing think tank, accused the registrants of sutherlandinstitute.com of cybersquatting. The actual website of the institute is sutherlandinstitute.org. The respondents used the .com top-level domain to run an protest site they claimed was a parody of the real Sutherland Institute. …

Wisconsin Secretary of State Doug LaFollette has been in his job since 1974. Running virtually uncontested each election year, he decided he could save a few bucks by not paying his registration fee, letting the domain expire, and picking it back up when it came time to run for office …

The Proctor and Gamble Company (PG), responsible for products such as Tide detergent, Pampers diapers, and Scope mouthwash, recently filed a domain dispute with Richard Jones, a man who registered scopemouthwash.com and used it for his search portal of miscellaneous advertisements available in multiple languages. PG owns pg.com as well …

The website owners of Hotels.com have been trying to get trademark status for the domain name for over year, but Friday The U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the ruling of the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. According to the court, the term “hotels” …

The city of Eagan, Minnesota in the United States has accused a man of trying to coerce a man who had an affair with his wife, using websites. The kicker of all of this, however, is that the websites in question could both be legitimate cybersquatting cases. The article about …

Experts are warning that the country domains for the Republic of Cameroon are easy targets for cybersquatters wishing to cash in on typos. This form of cybersquatting, which is developing its own name: typosquatting, takes place when someone registers a domain spelled similarly to another popular domain so that people …

A new case has been filed with the WIPO regarding dolphins.com. The complainant is the Miami Dolphins, a U.S.-based American bartball team. A quick look at the website reveals that it points to a series of links and ads mostly about the Miami Dolphins. This seems to be the reason …

Last week, EZMoney.com sold for £13,411 ($22,000 USD at auction). Finance and loan-related domains have traditionally always demanded a premium at marketplace, but the fact this name sold for the price of a new car is surprising considering it’s trademarked. This site claims ownership of the trademark “EZMoney.” A quick …

Last April, blogger Mike Morgan got a cease and desist letter from financial firm Goldman Sachs. The letter demanded that he take down his website, GoldmanSachs666.com, a blog critical of the company. Goldman claims it violated its intellectual property rights. An attorney himself, Morgan fought back, and won. Though “Goldman …