Archive for the 'domain dispute' Category

Nissan.com domain dispute

Published April 28th, 2007 in arbiter, nissan, domain dispute, wipo and uncategorized. 1 Comment

Nissan Motors, the Japanese car manufacturer, is suing Mr Uzi Nissan, the current owner of nissan.com, for USD 10 million. Mr Nissan registered nissan.com in 1994, as a home page for his company Nissan Computer Company, which he founded in 1991.


Nissan Motors may have missed the Internet boat on the Internet in 1994, but by 2002 they started their outboard engine and caught up. The legal battle has been brutal, according to Mr Nissan, who is convinced that Nissan Motors is determined to bankrupt him.


Mr Nissan clearly has a right to the domain name as his last name is Nissan, and that is not because he changed it by deed poll (unlike the infamous Mr Oxford University) the Nissan surname stretches back at least two generations. Yet Nissan Motors also have a right to the domain name, as their name is Nissan. Who will win?


Well Nissan Motors has charged in court that Mr Nissan is a cybersquatter, a speculator intent on cashing in on Nissan Motors’ brand. So far Nissan Motors has lost on this point, although the company has had some success in its related claim that Nissan Computer Company is infringing on Nissan Motors’ business by directing traffic to automotive-related advertisers.


Mr Nissan also has the domain nissan.net


A WHOIS search conducted by Ambrand Dot Com shoes that Nissan Motors does at least own nissan.org, but it appears they don’t want it as it goes to a parking page.


It is nice to see that despite the court rulings Mr Nissan still owns the domain, even though he is limited in what content he can display there.
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barcelona.eu domain dispute

Published May 28th, 2006 in eu fiasco, domain dispute and uncategorized. 1 Comment

TRAFFIC WEB HOLDING BV (”Traffic”) registered the domain barcelona.eu. Ajuntament de Barcelona (Barcelona City Council) appealed against the EURID registration.


THe registration was made prior to sunrise, and the registrant relied on their Benelux trademark, the form of the trade mark comprises the words “BARC & ELONA“, in blue and in a stylised upper case, the words being placed in between two parallel horizontal lines, each line being comprised of small red squares.

The spaces between the words can be removed, but what about the symbol “&” (the ampersand)? It could be read as BARCELONA, but it could also be read as BARCANDELONA.

Other Benelux marks for other European cities were lodged in a similar form by Traffic for many other European cities anc countries, such as AMST & ERDAM, ATH & ENS, BIRM & INGHAM etc and BEL & ARUS, BO & OSNIA etc.


Article 11 of Commission Regulation (EC) No 874/2004 says

…
Where the name for which prior rights are claimed contains special characters, spaces, or punctuations, these shall be eliminated entirely from the corresponding domain name, replaced with hypens, or, if possible rewritten… Special character and punctuations as referred to… include the following:…&…

So Traffic is cartainly entitled to register BARC-ELONA.EU, but what about BARCELONA.EU? Lets look again at Article 11, it says “…replaced with hypens, or, if possible rewritten” (my emphasis). So it seems that the latter is acceptable, the provision is ambiguous.


If the Article were construed to give an applicant an unfettered choice, it could lead to some surprising results. For example, the owner of a trademark for B&A&R&C&E&L&O&N&A could have chosen to use it as the basis of a sunrise application for BARCELONA.eu. The ARD though considers Prior Rights and concludes that Traffic should have rewritten their application as BARCANDELONA.

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