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He’s back: Guy sues domain “kingpins” after being “quashed by the cartel”

by — Policy & Law 14 Comments

Landcruise guy is back with a new lawsuit.

A confused man looking at papers with question marks all around his head

Pro Se plaintiff litigant Graham Schreiber is at it again, suing* a bunch of people and companies over some alleged sleight about domain names.

What that sleight is, I can’t quite understand even after reading his lawsuit. Something about kingpins and a cartel.

Schreiber, sued ICANN, CentralNic and a handful of other companies back in 2012 after someone registered a third level domain under .uk.com that he said infringed his trademark.

Since then, Schreiber has frequently posted on social media and comments on this blog about his grievances. Just last week, he left a comment on Domain Name Wire saying that USMCA (the new trade agreement that replaces NAFTA) gives Canadian courts jurisdiction over many entities and people. (Schreiber lives in Canada.)

The list of defendants includes 34 people that are apparently part of ICANN’s Intellectual Property Constituency, 21 people connected to registrars and registries, a bunch of government folks, and—why not?—Google, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Schreiber is demanding $5 million from each defendant and wants a bunch of .com domains owned by CentralNic.

While I don’t understand the nature of the lawsuit, I’m sure Schreiber can explain the issue and how it impacts the “World.Wide.Web of .COMmerce” in the comments here.

* It’s not clear if the lawsuit has been filed in court.

Edible Arrangements sues to get Edibles.com

by — Policy & Law 23 Comments

Company alleges that the valuable domain name infringes on its ‘edible’ mark.

A screenshot of Edible Arrangements' website

Edible Arrangements, a franchisor of stores that sell fruit arrangements, has filed a lawsuit (pdf) in an effort to get the domain name Edibles.com.

The company appears to have changed the primary branding on its website from Edible Arrangements to Edible within the past three years. It owns Edible.com and forwards it to EdibleArrangements.com.

World Media Group, LLC, which owns a number of valuable domain names, currently uses the Edibles.com domain name to promote a dietary app.

Edible Arrangements alleges this app is a ruse:

Rather, the EDIBLES App is a generic food database that merely sources data from the United States Government, giving the strong impression that the EDIBLES App is a sham and ruse merely to reserve for Defendant the Disputed Domain for potential and speculative future use and development while preventing Edible from using it and intentionally attempting to attract uses for commercial gain by creating a likelihood of confusion as to source or affiliation with Edible.

In its lawsuit, Edible Arrangements argues that the domain name Edibles.com infringes on its mark for “Edible”.

The plural form of Edible’s incontestable EDIBLE mark has no material distinction from the Defendant’s EDIBLES, and the two are therefore legal equivalents such that there is a likelihood of confusion.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court – Northern District of Georgia, where the company is located.

Judge won’t set aside TRO in Calculator.com case

by — Policy & Law 12 Comments

Domain will continue to point to original owner’s website.

Screenshot of Calculator.com

For now, Calculator.com resolves to the original owner’s website.

The judge overseeing a lawsuit for Calculator.com has ruled (pdf) that she won’t set aside a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) that effectively transferred the domain back to the original owner.

Judge Beth Bloom denied Stands4’s request to set aside the TRO. She approved the TRO last week after the original owner of Calculator.com filed a lawsuit saying the domain was stolen.

Here’s the story:

Stands4 says it bought the Calculator.com domain name last month for $180,000 and then spent $50,000 launching a website on it. But the lawsuit alleges the domain name was stolen and that Stands4 might have bought a “hot” domain name.

A purported thief tried to sell the domain on Sedo in 2018, but the buyer canceled the sale after trying to verify ownership.

According to the lawsuit, the thief impersonated the domain owner in 2018 and used false documents to trick Network Solutions into transferring the domain name to him or her. Network Solutions apparently moved the domain back into the correct account but did not revert the contact information to the original owner, so the alleged thief was able to transfer the domain to GoDaddy this year.

The effect of the judge’s decision means that the domain name will point to the Plaintiff’s website not Stand4’s website, for now.

 

Does not compute! Calculator.com case gets interesting as buyer shows up

by — Policy & Law 15 Comments

Did Stands4 buy a hot domain?

Picture of gavel with the words "lawsuit"

A dispute over the domain name Calculator.com is getting messy, and I calculate that someone is going to lose a lot of money.

Chloe Tsakiris Alston filed a lawsuit in Florida court after discovering that the Calculator.com domain name was no longer in her control. She says that she and her father are the original registrants of the domain.

The judge in the case approved a Temporary Restraining Order to transfer the domain name back to Alston’s domain name registrar.

Now the “current” owner of the domain is fighting back, saying that it bought the domain from Alston.

Stands4 LTD, which operates Grammar.com, Lyrics.com and Scripts.com, says (pdf) that it bought the domain from Alston for $180,000 last month through DAN.com. The company says that DAN.com reviewed Alston’s passport and utility bill and compared this information against Whois before approving the transaction.

The company then spent $50,000 launching a new site on Calculator.com.

Alston disputes (pdf) that she agreed to sell the domain name.

There’s certainly something weird going on. The seller agreement from when the domain “sold” on Sedo listed another party, which raises alarm bells. And it doesn’t make sense that Alston would sue after selling the domain.

Which is all to say that this case is going to get messy. It certainly doesn’t seem that a Temporary Restraining Order makes sense. (Stands4 is asking the court to reverse it.)

I also don’t see how the case will remain in Florida. The initial filing there didn’t make sense; none of the parties are based there. The only reason I can see for it being filed in Florida is that the Plaintiff hired an attorney there who successfully got a stolen domain back for another company through a Temporary Restraining Order.

Alston’s lawyers made a somewhat amusing argument for keeping the case there, including that ads on Stands4’s website are geo-targeted to visitors from Florida…when someone visits from Florida.

David Weslow of Wiley Rein is working with a Florida attorney on behalf of Stands4.

Stay tuned.

VirtualPoint sues after being hit with UDRP

by — Policy & Law 6 Comments

Maker of electric motorcycles filed UDRP after domain purchase negotiations failed.

Picture of a Voxan electric motorcycle

A Voxan electric motorcycle. Photo from Venturi website.

VirtualPoint, the same company that owns the UDRPsearch website, has sued a maker of electric motorcycles in a domain name dispute.

According to the lawsuit (pdf), VirtualPoint acquired the domain Voxan.com earlier this year. NameBio records show that it sold in a GoDaddy auction for $1,026. (It also sold at GoDaddy the prior year for $1,009.)

Shortly after that, VirtualPoint received purchase inquiries through a broker that did not identify itself as working with the company Venturi, which owns the brand Voxan.

The two parties couldn’t reach an agreement. Venturi’s final offer was $40,050, according to the lawsuit. VirtualPoint’s final offer was $144,800.

Venturi then filed a UDRP with World Intellectual Property Organization that has not yet been decided.

VirtualPoint is seeking declaratory judgment that it’s not infringing Venturi’s mark, and for Venturi’s trademark to be canceled. Brett Lewis of Lewis & Lin is representing VirtualPoint.

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