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XYZ asks court to make Verisign lawsuit documents public

by — Policy & Law 3 Comments

Company that runs .xyz domain wants to make documents from legal battle public.

XYZ wants to make documents from long battle with Verisign pubic.

XYZ.com, LLC, the company that operates the .xyz top level domain name, has asked a court (pdf) to let it make certain documents from a lawsuit with Verisign (NASDAQ:VRSN) public.

Verisign, the registry that operates the .com and .net top level domains, sued the .xyz operator in early 2015 alleging false advertising. Basically, Verisign said XYZ inflated its success and disparaged Verisign’s domains.

After extensive discovery, a judge tossed out Verisign’s suit on summary judgment. XYZ then asked the court to require Verisign to pay its $1.6 million legal bill, but that was put on hold as Verisign appealed the lower court’s ruling to an appeals court. Click here to continue reading…

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Weeds.com owner fights back, asks for damages for reverse domain name hijacking

by — Policy & Law 9 Comments

Weeds.com owner asks court to penalize weed control company for reverse domain name hijacking.

Last year a regional weed control company in the United States called Weeds, Inc. filed a UDRP cybersquatting claim against Innovation HQ, Inc, the owner of Weeds.com.

Before the UDRP decision was published, Weeds, Inc. followed up by filing a federal lawsuit against Innovation HQ. Shortly thereafter, the World Intellectual Property Organization UDRP panel published its decision that Weeds, Inc. had engaged in reverse domain name hijacking by filing the UDRP.

It took a while for Weeds, Inc. to serve Innovation HQ, but now the case is moving forward. And as I predicted, this could end up being a costly case for the weed control company: Innovation HQ is fighting back.

Innovation HQ is asking the court (pdf) to grant damages for reverse domain name hijacking, plus other fees. It also alleges that Weeds, Inc. committed fraud on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to get its trademark and is asking the court to order the trademark to be canceled. All told, if the court agrees, Weeds, Inc. could be forced to pay over $100,000.

John Berryhill is representing Innovation HQ.

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Owner of CryptoSecurities.exchange goes after CryptoSecurities.com

by — Policy & Law 11 Comments

CryptoSecurities.com was registered in 2013 and the plaintiff’s business was just created this year.

A law firm that created a business on the domain name CryptoSecurities.exchange has filed a lawsuit (pdf) against the owner of the CryptoSecurities.com domain name.

In the suit, plaintiff Castro & Co claims to have “a federal trademark registration, no. 87756075, for the mark CRYPTOSECURITIES”. It also says “Plaintiff has engaged in extensive marketing activities in connection with its mark CRYPTOSECURITIES, and has expended significant resources to develop its goodwill in and consumer identification with the mark.”

There are a few things that might give you pause.

First, the “federal trademark registration” is an application and it was only filed on January 16, 2018. It was also filed on an intent-to-use basis.

It appears that the plaintiff has now started the business on Cryptosecurities.exchange, a domain name that was just registered on February 20 of this year.

Yet Cryptosecurities.com was registered way back in 2013. It’s been under the same Whois privacy service since at least 2014.

The cryptosecurities.exchange website even has a handy timeline explaining that the idea for the business was created on January 2, 2018:

“The Genesis of CSX. Dr. Castro texts Mo Iqbal at 11:41pm stating “You can basically create a stock exchange that’s blockchain-based.”

cryptosecurities.exchange

I’m intrigued how the plaintiffs are going to argue that the domain was registered in bad faith to target its trademark given that the domain was registered so many years before its business was created.

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Another example of why your company must be the registrant of its domain names

by — Policy & Law 4 Comments

Airline alleges that former contractors are holding its domain names hostage.

Flair Airlines alleges that former contracts are holding its domain names hostage, forcing it to change its website address.

A small Canadian airline says that former contractors are holding its two main domain name hostage, causing the company to lose substantial sales. It’s yet another example of why a company must be the registered owner of its domain names rather than letting a third party be the registrant.

In a lawsuit (pdf) filed in Illinois yesterday, Flair Airlines Ltd claims that former customer service and website services contractors were supposed to register FlairAirlines.com and FlairAirlines.ca in the airline’s name.

When the relationship soured and was terminated, the airline found out that the domains were not in its control. The airline could not get control of the domains or make changes to them at GoDaddy because it wasn’t the official registrant.

In its suit, the airline says that it was forced to switch its domain name to FlairAir.ca. On the day of the switch the company’s sales went from $64k to $29k, it says. It had to spend money for Google Adwords to direct customers to the “correct” website.

Regardless of who is at fault for the termination of the business relationship, this is just another example of why a company must be the registrant of its domain names. It should also have the master registrar controls for the domain name.

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Bespoke.com domain owner successfully defends another attack

by — Policy & Law 3 Comments

Judge tosses latest attempt to get Bespoke.com domain name.

You have to feel bad for Garth Piesse.

The New Zealand resident bought Bespoke.com in a competitive expired domain auction on DropCatch.com in 2014 for $18,805. It was a pretty good deal. But now his legal costs have surely dwarfed his purchase price.

First, Bespoke Services Group S.A. of Switzerland filed a UDRP against the domain name. It lost.

Then, a New Orleans company called Bespoke, LLC filed a lawsuit under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act.

It was going to be hard to convince a U.S. court of jurisdiction over the New Zealand resident, but the Lousiana company tried its hardest with some far-fetched claims. Piesse, represented by attorney David Weslow, filed a motion to dismiss the Louisiana case in July 2017. A judge dismissed (pdf) the lawsuit this week due to lack of jurisdiction.

In some ways, Piesse has a ready defense the next time a company tries to file a cybersquatting claim against the domain: if three companies think that Bespoke.com infinges their trademark, it will be hard to convince anyone that Piesse was targeting them with his domain registration.

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