Group chartered by Congress targets domain names.
The Purple Heart is a military decoration given to those who’ve made the ultimate sacrifice for the U.S. military: being wounded or killed in duty.
The Military Order of the Purple Heart was chartered by Congress in 1958 for recipients of the Purple Heart.
The group, which has a web site at PurpleHeart.org, is now asking World Intellectual Property Organization to award it the domain names PurpleHeart.com and purpleheartcardonation.net in separately filed arbitration cases.
Earlier this year the group filed a complaint for purpleheart-donations.org, but it was terminated when the owner agreed to hand over the domains.
I think this will be an interesting case to watch. I was unaware of The Military Order of the Purple Heart’s exact connection to the Purple Heart. But the group has filed lawsuits in the past.
If the group wins, I would expect it to file many more UDRP cases. A simple search on Google for “Purple Heart” returns a bunch of different domains including the keyword.
Hal Meyer says
So, the complainant makes a claim 14 years late?
Creation Date: 18-jan-1998
Seems like a great case to argue laches.
Nacho Domain says
They need to buy it, not try and take it.
Charlie says
What affiliation are they? I doubt it’s a us govt entity or an authorized supported MWR/USO group besides all government agencies belong to the us taxpayers. Will be interesting to see the results from this.
Steve Jones says
The .com is a monetized minisite centered around the military Purple Heart. I kind of doubt they can claim having legitimate rights to the name with doing that. If they had a site unrelated to the Purple Heart or simply didn’t monetize the site they have up now, they would probably have a decent shot of winning, but as-is, cases recently would seem to suggest they will probably lose.
As it is, there’s so much history with the Purple Heart that it would be hard to use that .com in a different way and not get a lot of confused visitors.
David Capps says
Hal, Nacho Charlie and Steve appreciate the interesting and enlightening comments. A Little history here, my brother was in South East Asia back in 1968 while I was serving with the Marines and on the 17 Feb 68 after we delivered Mr. Walter Cronkite and Co. into cover the biggest battle of the War. I got jammed up in the city and became detached from my unit. and on the 18th of Feb. 68 received a GSW thru the brain, and many would of never survived such an injury and It wouldn’t of been but for my brother the person that put the site up .. as it used to have me and a fish.. and also I years ago received many many e-mails. I did some research regarding? MORPH and have seen some FLAGS RAISED by various agency’s and have the understanding they received F’s for “accountability” So I am quite shocked that they can use Charitable funds to raise such a claim, suit. Does not make it right, does not make it fair. I am curious myself what entitles them to it in the first place. After all I am the one missing one third of my brain.
s/f
Dave