Company settles trademark dispute.

Frank Schilling’s company Name Administration has reached a settlement with the holder of a trademark for Cheat Code, according to documents at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Late last year CheatCodes.com LLC started going after people who had “cheat code” in their domain names, thanks to somehow slipping the generic term “Cheat Code” past a USPTO examiner. It went after small webmasters, but also sent a demand to Name Administration for its CheatCode.com domain name. That was a mistake.

Name Administration filed for cancellation of the Cheat Code mark in November. On June 10 Name Administration’s lawyers informed the USPTO that a settlement was reached and dismissed the case.

Details of the settlement have not been made public. However, the withdrawal of the Petition for Cancellation means the trademark stands for now, which is not good news to smaller players who have been threatened by CheatCodes.com. Unless, of course, CheatCodes.com LLC is a bit more gun shy now.

Red Bull spends big bucks disputing domains, then let’s them go.

Is it possible that Red Bull’s lawyers are too caffeinated when they file domain name disputes through UDRP?

More than perhaps any other company, Red Bull finds itself winning domains at UDRP that are “canceled” instead of “transferred”. This means that the current registration is deleted and the domains become available for re-registration rather than being transferred to the winner.

I’ve seen cases where a panelist accidentally declares a domain canceled, but it would appear that Red Bull’s lawyers may be to blame for these cases. How else you can explain over 70 domains it has won at UDRP being canceled? Surely its lawyers are asking for domains to be canceled rather than transferred.

And what happens to those domains after they’re canceled? Red Bull is lax about picking them up. I checked the status of all 72 domains I’ve found canceled on behalf of Red Bull that have gone through deletion. Red Bull currently owns only four of them. All four of those were from one case, too.

12 of the canceled domains were subsequently registered by another party and fully 56 of them are currently available for registration.

ICANN’s actions on .xxx go well beyond this one top level domain.

ICANN’s Board of Directors will once again consider what to do with the .xxx top level domain name during its board meeting at the culmination of the Brussels meeting this week.

More than just a decision on a mistake ICANN made long ago, this will act as a bellwether on the new top level domain process. Why? It will show us how much of a stomach ICANN has for controversy when it comes to introducing new TLDs in the next round. The “inside” controversy new TLDs have created is minute compared to the coming storm.

Yes, the deal with ICM registry is different. But if ICM wasn’t around, .xxx would still be on the table as a new TLD. And a lot of people would be upset about that. Just like they’ll be upset about .sex, .gay, and various .religion domain names.

Even non-controversial domains will spark fury when the general public finally realizes what is going on. Take .jobs. Yes, people are upset about a change in the “charter” and are publicly saying they are mostly upset with the “process” under which it was made. But “process” is often used as a euphemism when people really don’t want something for other reasons. Such as competition.

ICANN is about to enter a dark age of controversy. We’ll find out more about how it will handle it on Friday.

The dates tell the story.

The owner of a trademark for “MyCyty” has failed in his attempt to get the domain name MyCity.com through UDRP.

That someone would go after the correctly spelled version of their made up trademark is a bit surprising. But the circumstances in this case are particularly egregious. It should be clear to anyone who visits MyCity.com that it is being used for a bona fide purpose by its owner, 411WEB Directory.

Even if it weren’t, the dates tell the story. According to the panelist’s decision, Denis Freiden’s trademark for MyCyty was registered on October 27, 2009, with a first use date of May 26, 2006. 411WEB Directory has owned the MyCity.com domain name since before that date. (The record at the USPTO shows that the first use date for the MyCyty textual mark was actually in 2009.)

This is a classic case of reverse domain name hijacking. It’s impossible that 411WEB Directory registered the domain name to infringe on MyCyty if it was registered prior to the existence of MyCyty. But the panelist chickened out on finding reverse domain name hijacking (she did deny MyCyty’s claim though). Instead of focusing on the fact that MyCity.com was registered prior to the existence of trademark rights in MyCyty, Sandra J. Franklin focused on the fact that the respondent didn’t show evidence of being assigned the MyCity trademark from its predecessor-in-interest and let its trademark for MyCity lapse. All of these are irrelevant given the date the respondent took ownership of the domain name. (It’s unclear if the respondent pointed out these dates in its response.)

Ironically, it’s the owner of MyCyty.com that should be more concerned about losing his domain. After all, it has bogus whois information.

KnujOn calls out eNom for pharmacy sites.

Internet security research group KnujOn isn’t afraid to pick a fight. And its latest report (pdf) picks a big one, going after 162 domain name registrars including eNom, the second biggest in the world. It even says that eNom is an “active facilitator of illicit criminal traffic”. But that logic is based on the idea that everything illegal on the internet usually involves a domain name, and you should blame the registrar.

Before getting into the eNom complaints, KnujOn suggests that basically all ills of the internet start with illicit drug trade:

There are many types of threats on the Internet but our research reveals the heavy influence of diverted, altered, and counterfeit prescription drugs. In our estimation this is the number one threat to consumers and the Internet structure. Additional security threats like malware deployment, denial of service attacks, trademark hijacking, botnets, spam, WHOIS fraud, network intrusions, domain hijacking, Registrar corruption, and electronic money laundering are all tools of the global network of illicit drug traffic. Beyond the Internet this traffic impacts the health of the public while funding organized crime and terrorist groups.

That’s quite a claim. But here’s what KnujOn has to say about eNom:

These are therefore the facts. There are roughly 4,000 rogue Internet pharmacies violating the criminal laws specified above that are utilizing eNom’s registration services, more than any other Registrar by a factor of seven. eNom is aware of the illegal nature of these domains. eNom has been notified by the organization that represents pharmacy regulatory authorities about this problem, and has been requested to work with LegitScript, as other U.S.-based Registrars do, and non-U.S. Registrars who do business in the United States, to identify clearly illegal websites and suspend them in accordance with the RAA, UDRP and their own Terms and Conditions. eNom has failed to act.

And the group says eNom is thereby an “active facilitator” of illegal conduct:

Since December, 2009 eNom has transitioned from being a passive service provider to become an active facilitator of illicit criminal traffic, and possibly a knowing accessory, under the common definitions.

Is it fair to blame the registrar? To what extent should a registrar be involved in taking down these domains? It’s a legitimate question, but KnujOn says eNom needs to act:

No one is suggesting that eNom is a principal in these cases. However, without their sponsorship of domains, like canadianhealthcaremall.net, the illicit activity would not exist. So it follows that eNom is facilitating crimes committed by the owners of canadianhealthcaremall.net because eNom knowingly provides them with the means and opportunity to commit a crime. We have already established eNom has full knowledge of the crimes documented and from that day their inaction helps the criminals commit additional crimes and even evade detection through privacy services.

Seems a lot like the “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people” debate.

The report knocks eNom more, including how it operates “Acquire This Name” to sell company-owned domains. Although this has been known in the domain community for a while, I’m not sure why KnujOn labeled this as a “reseller” abuse.