Paris Sues Paris.org Owner in French Court
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009
French cyberbullies step up attack.
Ville de Paris — the City of Paris — is continuing its multi-prong attack on domain name owners by filing a lawsuit against the owner of Paris.org, this time in French Court. The owner has had the domain name since 1995.
The move to Paris is another attempt to find some sort of venue that will give the city exclusive rights to use “Paris” in a domain name. But it’s not a guaranteed win for the city. In fact, it previously lost a trademark case in France and was fined as a result. Perhaps it’s time to start a new series on Domain Name Wire. I’ll dub it Paris: Ville de Trademark Fools.
Here’s a quick review of Paris’ war on domain name owners:
2006-2007: City of Paris sends threatening cease and desist letters to owners of domain names with Paris in them, including Paris.com and Paris.tv. Owners of Paris.com and Paris.tv file suit against Paris in American court. Paris runs away and claims lack of jurisdiction.
September 2009: Paris tries its hand at UDRP, filing cases against owners of WifiParis.com, Wifi-Paris.com, and Parvi.org (Parvi is the name of Paris’ municipal wifi project). It loses the Wifi cases, but wins Parvi.org in a disturbing decision.
December 2009: Because Paris agreed to U.S. jurisdiction when it filed the UDRPs, the owner of Parvi.org sues Ville de Paris in Texas court. Then, after running away from the Paris.tv lawsuit years earlier, Paris files a UDRP against Paris.tv. Finally, Ville de Paris takes its case to French court by suing the owner of Paris.org.
Stay tuned to Domain Name Wire for updates on Paris: Ville de Trademark Fools.
Related posts:
- Paris Loses another Geo Domain Case, But You Won’t Believe The Dissent…
- Paris Attacks Geo Domain Name Owners
- Paris’ War on U.S. Domain Owners Coming to a Head
Tags: paris trademark, udrp, ville de paris
Good catch on D2009-1255, wifi-paris.com, Andrew.
It is listed as “denied” at WIPO, but the decision has not been linked yet.
We’ve been waiting for that shoe to drop. Ville de Merde is 0 for 3 on domains transferred via the UDRP in this recent batch.
“We’ve been waiting for that shoe to drop.”
Mr.Berryhill,
The shoe dropped today.
http://snurl.com/WiFi-Paris
Thanks Patrick. I’ve been waiting patiently for the Wifi-paris.com decision to be posted. Looks like the respondent didn’t reply but still one. Most importantly, the arbitrator said Ville de Paris doesn’t have trademark rights to the word ‘Paris’.
“Most importantly, the arbitrator said Ville de Paris doesn’t have trademark rights to the word ‘Paris’.”
You might think they would be getting the message by now, but they obviously ride “le bus scolaire court.”
You may also read this: http://www.01net.com/editorial/377151/paris-joue-lintimidation-pour-proteger-ses-noms-de-domaine/ to learn more on how the city is chasing French name holders (article in French, but you can get the general idea with an automatic translation)
If they won, then maybe Paris Hilton would lose all her domains.
They are very persistent, it’s quite disturbing though that they feel it necessary to file all these suits and the reasons for which some of them have been granted.
Funny! They claimed jurisdictional immunity from prior cases filed against them in the U.S. but are now filing in France? Registrar of record is where?
Hmmm… I can’t wait to read the response.
Henry.
Well done by this panelist. It is great to see a well-reasoned decision based on precedence.
All the French are doing now is establishing ruling after ruling that will further protect primary Geos. Anyone who was entertaining the idea of Reverse Hijacking Geos must be now sitting a corner pulling the wings off of flies.
[...] That leads into an issue for domainers that will take center stage next year over geographic names. The City of Paris is trying every tactic in the book to obtain useful domain names with the word “paris” or “Parvi” in it. We have been hired as the local counsel for the team who filed the lawsuit against the City of Paris here in Houston on behalf of the holder of the domain name. This is a pretty big deal in the domain name world because if the City of Paris can win their claims, then all geographic based names could be subject to claims by governmental entities. In other words, the City of Houston could then make a claim to obtain the domain name http://www.houstonrestaurants.com to take it away from the advertiser who currently has it and might have paid good money for it. You can read more about the issue on the Domain Name Wire blog. [...]
paris.com guys should sue those idiots for usinng paris in their domains
Few questions:
(i) Who owns the city Paris?
(ii) Can a city name be made a TM by the city.
silly frogs
[...] Lire l’article complet Paris Sues Paris.org Owner in French Court [...]
[...] forward to 2009. After filing a number of UDRPs for domains including the word “Paris”, and getting sued in Texas court as a results, Paris went ahead and filed a UDRP against Paris.tv. [...]