New York-New York Wins Trademark suit Over Domain: newyorknewyork .com

[companyone]

Hi,

New York-New York wins trademark suit over Internet domain name


By: Steve Green ~ (Las Vegas Sun .com)

Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2010 | 4:04 p.m.

MGM Resorts International has won a trademark infringement lawsuit involving its New York-New York hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip, with MGM Resorts winning rights to the potentially valuable Internet domain name newyorknewyork .com.

Attorneys for MGM Resorts’ 2,024-room New York-New New York resort prevailed July 29 when U.S. District Judge Lloyd D. George in Las Vegas issued a default judgment against a company called NewYorkNewYork .com Inc.

The default judgment ordered that the website domain name be transferred to the casino company and that NewYorkNewYork .com Inc. pay the casino company $101,000 in damages – including $100,000 for violating the Anti-cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act.

George’s ruling came in a lawsuit alleging "cybersquatting" that was filed in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas in November.

The hotel-casino company charged in the suit that the website of Tarzana, Calif., man Ronnie Katzin, using the phrase "New York New York," infringed on the Las Vegas hotel-casino's trademarks covering that name for resort and hotel services not provided in the city or state of New York; and for casino services.

The website last year included an image of the Las Vegas casino property, but New York-New York in its lawsuit complained there was no disclaimer that the website had no affiliation with the Las Vegas casino property.

The lawsuit alleged that when users clicked on a banner, they were not re-directed to the hotel's official Web site, www. nynyhotelcasino .com, but instead to a third-party Web site. That site enabled website users to book hotel reservations at the Las Vegas hotel-casino as well as competing Las Vegas hotels.

That, the hotel-casino charged, showed: "Defendants have and/or had a bad faith intent to profit from plaintiff's New York-New York marks."

Katzin, however, said last year that he obtained the website name in about 1996, before the hotel-casino opened, and that he obtained the name as part of his love for the Frank Sinatra song "New York, New York" and to develop a website promoting New York City.

SOURCE: MUCH MORE WITH WHOLE ARTICLE & LINKS

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Peace!
Dan

 

[draggar]

Wait, so he linked to Expedia and that's what started the whole case?

So then is Expedia infringing??

 

[DomainsInc]

Ouch....the guy made his bed putting up ads for hotels in vegas. Pretty dumb.

 

[draggar]

This is actually quite scary now that I think about it.

What if Expedia uses Adwords (I'm sure they do) and has a graphic ad though them.

I have Adsence on one of my sites and that image ad comes up - does this mean I'm infringing (on whoever's picture is being used) if the domain is similar to the ad?

 

[stock_post]

This case has to be handled by Google..
They have more money than the Casino, so you are OK

This is actually quite scary now that I think about it.

What if Expedia uses Adwords (I'm sure they do) and has a graphic ad though them.

I have Adsence on one of my sites and that image ad comes up - does this mean I'm infringing (on whoever's picture is being used) if the domain is similar to the ad?