Apple VP Ive Loses Domain Name Bid

[JB7]

Apple, like most big companies, is pretty vigilant about protecting its intellectual property via copyright, patents, and trademarks. Unfortunately, that policy doesn't seem to have extended to the names of some of its notable employees. Jonathan Ive, Apple's senior vice president of industrial design, has lost a bid to gain control of the domain names using his name.

U.K. citizen Harry Jones registered several permutations of the Apple design maven's name in 2004, including jonathanive.com, jony-ive.com, jonathan-ive.com, and jonyive.com, all of which point to Jones's fan site about Ive. After a failed attempt to buy out Jones--he asked for $400,000 but Apple offered him only $10,000--the notoriously publicity-shy Ive took the matter to the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO).


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400k lol, and he is running adsense on the fansite too.

[HuntingMoon]

i view this as good news. i disagree with celebs/public figures that think they are more entitled to their name.com than others sharing the same name. this case may not be the cut & dry celeb wipo since there is a fan site up, but i am glad to see a ruling in favor of the domainer.

[dominator]

$400K for this name is ridiculous

$10k or $20k would be just enough

[exponent]

$400k smells a lot like squatting. $10k is probably more than he would have made from adsense.

[HarveyJ]

It's clearly in bad faith though.
He didn't register a singlular domain for his fansite, he registered an arse load of them in an attempt to ensure that Ive couldn't get his own name without going through this guy.

[realestatepro]

What does the 400k go to do with squatting...? I see no connection there. Just because he stated a high price (way to high in my opinion) does not make it squatting.
Perhaps the figure as another meaning... Like "I don't really want to sell..."
or it is worth more to him in his world.
Clearly this guy has some problems, perhaps the 400k is to compensate the loss with lots of therapy. You never know, but I think the suggestion of squatting due to an unrealistic price is incorrect.

$400k smells a lot like squatting. $10k is probably more than he would have made from adsense.

[Artist Connection]

If Ivy goes on to run Apple for twenty years once Jobs is officially retired the site would generate loads of traffic. Maybe that's his long term plan. Having said that who would turn down 10k for someone else's name?

[dominator]

You never know, but I think the suggestion of squatting due to an unrealistic price is incorrect.

you are right, squatting can be also with $10k

If Ivy goes on to run Apple for twenty years once Jobs is officially retired the site would generate loads of traffic. Maybe that's his long term plan. Having said that who would turn down 10k for someone else's name?

completely agree

btw: now i understand the "i" in iMac and iPod