Second lawsuit filed after UDRP decision.

The legal expenses are mounting on this one.

Urban Home, the California furniture maker that filed a UDRP on UrbanHome.com, has now filed a federal lawsuit in California to try to get the domain name.

The suit is in response to UrbanHome.com’s owner, Technology Online, filing suit in Nevada to halt the transfer of the domain name.

The WIPO panel found in favor of Urban Home. Technology Online decided to sue to stop the transfer.

I’m not sure what Urban Home’s angle for filing in California is. Although it may be an acceptable jurisdiction, it still agreed to be subject to the Nevada jurisdiction when it filed the UDRP.

There are a number of facts that need to be determined in this case. One is when Technology Online acquired the domain. Another is how strong Urban Home’s trademark is. Its suit claims it has “vigilantly policed and protected its rights and interests in and to the URBAN HOME trademark…” Yet it didn’t file for a trademark on the term until 2011 and didn’t go after the domain UrbanHome.com until December 2012.

Urban Home’s web address is ShopUrbanHome.com, so it’s no wonder it wants the better UrbanHome.com domain.

University of Central Florida takes issue with liquor store’s marketing and domain name.

The University of Central Florida has sued a local liquor store that bills itself as “Your Official UCF Liquor Store”.

Pat’s Liquor, which is located about a mile from UCF’s Orlando campus, has been using the domain name UCFLiquorStore.com and pitching itself as the official local store of the university.

Obviously, “official liquor store” and “university” don’t go well together.

The University also takes issue with the company’s Facebook page at facebook.com/patsliquorucf.

UCF says it sent multiple cease & desist letters to the store but did not receive a response. So it filed its lawsuit (pdf) for trademark dilution, unfair and deceptive trade practices, and misleading advertising in U.S. District Court in Orlando yesterday.

Among the university’s requests are that Pat’s Liquor transfer the domain name into its control and take down the Facebook page.

As of this morning, UCFliquorstore.com resolves to a page saying it is offline for maintenance.

South Korean court blocked transfer of domain after UDRP; Citi files suit in the United States.

Last September a National Arbitration Forum panel ruled that Citigroup should get the domain name CityCard.com.

But the owner of the domain name sued in South Korea court to block the transfer.

Now Citigroup has filed an in rem action against the CityCard.com domain name in U.S. court (pdf).

In its suit, Citigroup claims:

…the South Korean court did not adjudicate Plaintiff’s rights under U.S. law or the U.S. Trademark Act, namely the ACPA. As a result, the South Korean court’s rulings are not relevant to Plaintiff’s above-captioned in rem Complaint seeking injunctive relief under the ACPA.

Here’s what makes this interesting to me.

When Citigroup filed its UDRP against the owner of CityCard.com, it most likely agreed to jurisdiction in South Korea should the respondent in the case file a lawsuit over the domain name. Now the company is upset over what that court ruled because it wasn’t based on U.S. law, so it’s filing an in rem action in the U.S.

Perhaps there’s more legal nuance to this, and I welcome any attorneys to chime in.

Garage door wars.

A couple weeks ago I wrote about a UDRP in which a panelist who knew little about internet marketing awarded the domain name BoiseGarageDoor.com to a garage door company in Boise.

Now the respondent in that case has filed a lawsuit to block the transfer (pdf). It also claims that the UDRP complainant Boise Garage Door, LLC is slandering and libeling it.

According to the suit:

Upon information and belief, on October 5, Defendant or his counsel left a negative review on the advertisement for boisegaragedoor.net on Yahoo! Local alleging that Boise Garage Door (sic) is stealing business from Boise Garage Door through “deceit”.

Here’s the ad:

The suit says that the domain in this advertisement – BoiseGarageDoor.net – was registered by an internet marketing group that is generating leads for it.

I find the “review” funny, as it says the domain is owned by a cybersquatter in Arizona. That’s actually just Go Daddy’s whois proxy service.

The negative review was allegedly posted during the WIPO case.

The immediate effect of this lawsuit is that WIPO will stay the transfer of the domain name to Boise Garage Door, LLC.

If the plaintiff is successful, Boise Garage Door could end up paying damages.

The plaintiff is represented by local counsel as well as internet attorney Brett Lewis.

Two California men claim domain registrar recorded calls without permission.

You know the line…

“This call may be recorded for quality or training purposes”.

Well, according to two California men, their phone calls with domain name registrar Go Daddy were secretly recorded in violation of California law.

The lawsuit they just filed (pdf) seeks class action status and $5,000 per recorded phone call for all California residents who had a phone call with the company and weren’t informed the calls were being recorded.

“Plaintiffs and the Class, like all members of the public, had objectively reasonable expectations that their telephone conversations were confidential communications that would not be overheard or recorded,” the suit states.

“As a direct result of Defendants’ conduct, Plaintiffs and the Class have sustained and will continue to sustain injury and are entitled to statutory damages and injunctive relief to be determined at trial.”

What those injuries are, I’m not quite sure.

Plaintiff David Higgins said he received five phone calls from Go Daddy in 2011-2012 and plaintiff Robert Patterson received more than five phone calls between 2008-2012. The suit appears to be about calls made by Go Daddy to customers rather than inbound customer calls.

When asked for comment, Go Daddy Public Relations told me “While Go Daddy does not comment on pending litigation, we take customer privacy concerns very seriously.”

Now I know why my Go Daddy account rep cuts me off at the beginning of each call to inform me that the call may be recorded.