Judge grants Motion to Dismiss against large domain name registrar and its parent company.
The judge presiding over Verizon’s cybersquatting lawsuit has granted a Motion to Dismiss (pdf) filed by Intercosmos Media Group, Inc., directNIC, LLC and Domain Contender, LLC for lack of personal jurisdiction. Domain Contender is a subsidiary of directNIC and directNIC is a subsidiary of Intercosmos.
Verizon argued that the entities had operations in Florida. The court found otherwise:
Verizon argues that the IMG Defendants are subject to specific jurisdiction under the long-arm statute because they purportedly have an office in Florida. However, as pointed out by the IMG Defendants, there is not a shred of plausible evidence in support of this contention.
Verizon pointed to a press release suggesting DirectNIC was opening to open an office in Tampa, but the court deemed it insufficient that a release mentioning future plans for an office proved that an office existed.
Verizon also noted that Donny Simonton, which the company says is CIO of Intercosmos, attended TRAFFIC in Florida in 2007:
In addition, the non-Internet activity alleged (specifically, the presence of one IMG employee at a Florida trade show) does not constitute minimum contacts with Florida.
The companies told the court they are Louisiana entities.
Bret Moore says
This kinda thing is really interesting. There’s been several high profile cybersquatting lawsuits filed in strange places lately. And I always wondered how they were getting jurisdiction over the defendants, since the ACPA only provides for in rem jurisdiction over the domain name itself where the registry is located (IIRC, that’s in the E.D. Va.). Otherwise, you have to sue the defendant where he’s located, or where the alleged bad act happened. I can’t understand how people can make a good faith argument that an act that happens “on the Internet” is all places at once, or at least in all 50 states.
Domainer Extraordinaire says
It’s great when one of the biggest typo squatters in the world loses.