Incoming NTIA chief asked to keep close eye on ICANN agreement.

U.S. Senators Olympia Snowe (of the infamous “Snowe Bill” ), R-Maine, and Bill Nelson, D-Fla, are pushing for incoming National Telecommunications & Information Administration chief Larry Strickling to keep a watchful eye on ICANN, reports Nextgov.

NTIA is currently requesting comments regarding what should happen to the Joint Project Agreement between the U.S. government and ICANN that expires September 30. If NTIA wants to continue the agreement or move DNS management to another entity, it could be up for a fight. Industry watchers suggest that ICANN can simply say ‘no’, although it will likely agree to concessions for political reasons.

I’m unimpressed with part of Strickling’s response about the future of U.S. involvement with ICANN. The quote in Nextgov’s article reads:

Regardless of whether the JPA is terminated, modified or extended, it is my belief that NTIA will continue to be an active participant in ICANN by representing the United States government in ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee as well as filing comments, as needed, in ICANN’s various public consultation processes.

That’s not what I’d call an active participation. So far the Governmental Advisory Committee seems to only be able to complain about the use of geographic names in domain names. And the comment process? Nevermind.

Gringrich’s lawyer confused about Twitter.

Here’s a funny cease & desist letter that shows how many politicians still don’t understand modern technology. The cease & desist was targeted to a Twitter user as well as Tucows (AMEX: TCX).

Twitter user EFCANOW tweeted “Join @newtgingrich @sanuzis in signing the EFCA Freedom Not Fear petition at http://action.americanright… WSJ.” (Gingrich is opposed to EFCA.) Gingrich’s lawyer then fired off a cease & desist to the twitter user claiming trademark infringement by using @newtgingrich in his tweet. Twitter users know that @ is like addressing someone on the service.

To make matters more humorous, the lawyer sent the C&D to domain name registrar Tucows, at which the linked-to petition domain was registered.

Citizen Media Law Project opines:

In a move that was likely good for a few laughs around the Tucows legal department, the letter goes on to state that the continued display of the offending tweet “can expose any and all involved parties (including Twitter, ContactPrivacy.com and/or TuCows) to substantial ongoing, and even personal liability.” Later, the letter increases the stakes even further, threatening liability against “each of you and/or other responsible decision-makers within your organization.”

And like many times, the C&D letter included a bunch of nonsensical claims:

So what claims is the intrepid attorney asserting against EPCANOW, Twitter, Tucows, your aunt, your cousin. . .? The list is long: trademark infringement, violation of Gingrich’s and Anuzis’ publicity rights, false advertising, false designation of origin, tortious interference with prospective economic advantage and contractual relations, common law and computer trespass (could Twitter trespass upon its own computer?), conversion, traditional fraud and wire fraud, breach of contract (i.e., Twitter’s terms of service), violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and even RICO violations. (Can we come up with a variation of Godwin’s Law that applies to allegations of RICO violations?) In short, every cause of action that Gingrich’s and Anuzis’ lawyer vaguely remembers from first year Contracts and Property, with all of the computer-related causes of action he’s ever heard about thrown in for good measure.

Have a laugh.

Company tries to patent geo-targeted directory that starts with “104″.

Apparently it’s kooky patent day.

This morning I wrote about a company trying to patent “virtual domain names“. Another patent application published today (pdf) is for a geo-targeted directory made up of domain names starting with “104″. Here’s the problem the patent tries to address, according to its author:

Due to the recent hype, over 128 million domain names have been registered to date, while most are not even dictionary words anymore. Over 90% of the registered domain names are either not active or simply “Parked” as referred to in the domain name art, since most people think someone is going to offer them large sums of money, basically for doing nothing more than registering a domain. Over 95% of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have long multiple-word domain names, which are easily forgotten, with respect to their name or exact spelling. Accordingly, all of the relatively valuable branded domain names have been registered many years ago.

The solution is to add a fixed prefix in front of the keyword you want, the applicant explains. In this case, if you want the keyword Lawyer.com you instead register 104Lawyer.com. (104 means 10-4, which is 10-code for “acknowledged”.) This is then part of a network that acts as a directory. If you type in 104Lawyer.com you’ll get a directory of 10 lawyers in your area.

104Inc.com has registered many 104domains, including 104loans.com and 104oil.com. It kind of reminds me of that old 24/7 domains scheme, except that this adds a directory to it.

Silly patent application? 10-4.

Company files patent on “virtual domain names”.

Weblo, a company that sells virtual property such as states, celebrities, and even domain names in a parallel universe, has filed a patent covering its so-called “virtual domain names”. The patent (pdf) was filed in 2007 and published today.

Of course, Weblo’s domain names don’t really work on the web. They are merely a page on the Weblo.com’s web site. Weblo describes its domain names as:

Weblo has opened a secondary domain name market inside the Weblo parallel universe. You can register any non-trademarked domain name at Weblo even if the real world domain name is taken outside of Weblo. Weblo domains often turn up in search engine results before real world Internet domains do. When you buy Weblo Domains, you get a website that you can build for each domain by adding pictures, videos, news and more. You can park your site or redirect it inside and outside of Weblo to drive traffic anywhere you want it to go.

To entice users to pay $1 per domain, the company teases visitors:

.com, .tv … Get the Best Domain Names of All-Time. Did you miss out on the Internet Boom the first time? Weblo has got you covered with your second chance to own any domain name – even if it’s owned outside of Weblo! Weblo lets you make money the same way real world domain owners do. It’s quick and easy so type the address of your favorite website now and become its owner. Don’t miss out a second time!

I recall someone adding domain names to Afternic a couple years ago that were really just “virtual” domains. They were later removed.

Given that Weblo.com uses Kontera to turn most of its sites into ads, I suspect the company is making more money getting unsuspecting visitors to click on ads than it is selling its virtual property.

Arbitrator rules against large financial firm trying to get three character domain name.

A World Intellectual Property Organization arbitrator has ruled against OVB Vermögensberatung AG of Köln, a financial firm based in Germany, in a dispute over the domain name OVB.com. The arbitrator decided that it was not clear the domain was registered and used in bad faith.

Working against the respondent, Michele Dinoia, was that he has been on the losing end of a number of UDRP cases involving big brand names. He has lost cases for Ford-credit.com, DatelineNBC.com, wwwAutoZone.com, and many others.

However, the arbitrator decided there wasn’t proof that Dinoia registered this particular name with the financial firm OVB in mind. In fact, OVB pointed out that the parked domain name included links related to a cutlery company called “Our Very Best”. Thus, the cutlery manufacturer may have been able to prove it was targeted, but the financial firm couldn’t.

As the Complainant has noted, between 1900 and World War II Camillus Cutlery, one of the oldest knife manufacturers in the United States, produced a well known line of knives under the brand OVB (an acronym for “Our Very Best”). Camillus resurrected the OVB brand use in the early 2000’s and obtained a United States trademark registration for OVB OUR VERY BEST on March 19, 2002. Two months later, the Respondent in May 2002 registered and began using the disputed domain name with a portal site containing advertising links for knives and cutlery. That this is sheer coincidence strikes the Panel as somewhat unlikely, particularly in light of prior decisions suggesting that the Respondent has targeted third-party trademarks on more than one occasion in the past. If this were the case here, however, it would appear that the Respondent was targeting Camillus Cutlery’s trademark rights rather than the Complainant’s trademark when registering the disputed domain name.

(Case decision here.)