ICM Registry to sponsor world champion powerboat racer Mike Seebold.

ICM Registry, the company behind the new .xxx top level domain name, is entering world class powerboat racing with world champion driver Mike Seebold to compete at this year’s Off Shore World Championships in Key West, Florida.

We’ve already seen domain name company’s names plastered on the side of Nascar and F-1 race cars (Go Daddy), now we’ll get to see one on a powerboat.

The race boat will be unveiled at next month’s TRAFFIC conference in Fort Lauderdale on the weekend prior to the event.

Company claims trademark infringement and that Facebook hijacked its username.

The Chicago company that owns Timelines.com and a federally registered trademark for “Timelines” has filed a trademark infringement suit (pdf) against Facebook over its new “Timeline” feature. According to the suit:

Facebook has announced its intention to use and, indeed has already begun to re-direct Internet traffic, using Timelines’ federally registered “TIMELINES” trademark as the centerpiece of Facebook’s new product offering going forward, a move that, given the size and reach of Facebook, will essentially eliminate Timelines and leave the public with the confusing impression that plaintiff Timelines is somehow affiliated with Facebook.

My first reaction is “how can a company claim a trademark on ‘timeline’?”

But according to the lawsuit Facebook took another action that looks really bad. The plaintiff says that Facebook has taken over its Facebook page — Facebook.com/timelines — and forwarded it to Facebook.com/timeline, which is Facebook’s informational page about the new feature.

Yeah, that looks bad.

Controversial legal services company is rebranding but doesn’t have the domain name.

Pre-Paid Legal Services is changing its name to LegalShield, but it has a big problem: it doesn’t own LegalShield.com.

Just a short time after filing an intent to use trademark application for “LegalShield” the company filed a UDRP complaint for LegalShield.com.

The respondent, represented by Ari Goldberger of Esqwire.com, won the case.

What’s interesting to me is that Pre-Paid Legal Services argued in the case:

Complainant has used the LEGAL SHIELD mark since as early as 1999 in connection with its offering of legal service plans. Since 1999, Complainant has sold legal service products under the LEGAL SHIELD mark to more than 800,000 people

Then why would you file an intent to use trademark application in 2011?

The domain was registered in 2001.

For some reason the panel didn’t consider reverse domain name hijacking despite Goldberger asking for it.

I hope Pre-Paid Legal has some pre-paid intellectual property legal counsel.

Texas Department of Transportation wins domain name dispute over DontMessWithTexas.com.

The Texas Department of Transportation has a message for domain name owners: Don’t Mess with Texas.

The organization just won a National Arbitration Forum case over the domain name DontMessWithTexas.com. The owner of the domain name didn’t respond to the dispute. Barring any late legal action by the owner, the domain will be transferred to the state within 10 days.

Don’t Mess With Texas is the state’s iconic slogan created for anti-litter campaigns in the mid-80s. It uses DontMessWithTexas.org for its web site.

The department has been more aggressive about protecting the trademark of late as people have started to disassociate the slogan with the anti-litter campaigns and it has brought on more of a generic meaning. It recently tried to stop the publication of a romance novel of the same name.

Although the department won its domain name disputee, it made a big mistake in how it argued the case (assuming the panelist accurately described it in her decision). The panelist considered 1996 as the registration date for the domain, which predated the federal trademark registration for the slogan. The domain has actually change hands many times since then and the domain registration per generally accepted UDRP guidelines actually occurred after the trademark was registered.

Google Analytics goes real-time.

Web analytics companies already know they need to quickly adapt to survive. Remember when Google acquired Urchin and then offered its suite for free as Google Analytics? Yeah, that shook things up.

Today Google announced real-time functionality in Google Analytics. This is a blow to two popular real time services: Woopra and ChartBeat. I’ve tried both paid services and personally like Woopra better.

Real time analytics is important for bloggers, news sites, and other publishers who see their traffic fluctuate based on posts and campaigns. It’s also a cool “nice to have” for stats junkies.

Although real time hasn’t been turned on for all Google Analytics clients yet (including myself), it will be interesting to see the full feature set. If I were Woopra or ChartBeat, I’d accelerate my roadmap ASAP to keep a step ahead.