Verizon awarded $33 million judgement against registrar OnlineNIC

[GeorgeK]

According to:

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2008/12/22/daily39.html

"A federal court in the Northern District of California has awarded Verizon $33.15 million in a "cybersquatting" case, Verizon reported Wednesday."

If one checks the Internic database:

http://www.internic.net/registrars/registrar-82.html

it appears that the court's jurisdiction is reasonable, given that OnlineNIC's contact location is given as:

OnlineNIC, Inc.
351 Embarcadero E. Oakland CA 94606
United States

and their own Terms of Service specify California jurisdiction:

http://www.onlinenic.com/terms/service-terms.php#_Toc521140253

OnlineNIC is a top 20 registrar with more than 1 million domains under management:

http://www.registrarstats.com/Public/RegistrarMarketShareMain.aspx

 

[INVIGOR]

Oh SNAP! That's gonna leave a mark!

 

[DaddyHalbucks]

Isn't OnlineNIC a Chinese company?

Regardless, that company SUCKS, in my opinion.

 

[Gerry]

I think the impact on ALL registrars will be huge.

Far too long it has been domainers that these TM holders go after.

Well now it is the registrar.

Isn't it odd that all registrars have a TOS outlining the does and don'ts and it always seems to include TM infringements?

Yet it is the registrars PERMIT the registration AND PERMIT THE SELLING, THE AUCTIONING, and FACILITATES THE TRANSFERS OF THE CYBERSQUATTED NAMES.

If this holds up, you may see a rapid TOS violation letter send out by all registrars and parking companies of anything remotely similar to a TM domain.

So rather than domainer doing the junk dump it may be registrars dumping the domainer!

 

[Seraphim]

OnlineNIC is hands down the worst domain registrar I've ever had to deal with.

 

[TheLegendaryJP]

I just do not see how a registrar could pratically dis-allow or block tm names from being registered.

For starters it's just not practically to scan every name at every stage.

Secondly who determines what a tm is and is not or furthermore who is to say the registrar does not start being sued by clients for name deletion or blocking and all the legal implications that follow this...

Frankly unless a registrar itself is regitering and using tm names it is not viable to stop the registration of them. jmo

 

[INVIGOR]

"unless a registrar itself is regitering and using tm names it is not viable to stop the registration of them"

There is just no way to monitor what's really a trademark, or say you've won the WIPO, but it's still a trademark, or you register today and tomorrow there is a trademark registered. There's just no way to police this. It appears they got in trouble for registering the names themselves, but who really knows.

I believe the ultimate responsibility lies with whoever is registering name(s) to do a bit of due diligence before registering a name. The problem is that most TM infringements are intentional or "wishful thinking."

 

[TheLegendaryJP]

"unless a registrar itself is regitering and using tm names it is not viable to stop the registration of them"

There is just no way to monitor what's really a trademark, or say you've won the WIPO, but it's still a trademark, or you register today and tomorrow there is a trademark registered. There's just no way to police this. It appears they got in trouble for registering the names themselves, but who really knows.

I believe the ultimate responsibility lies with whoever is registering name(s) to do a bit of due diligence before registering a name. The problem is that most TM infringements are intentional or "wishful thinking."

Yep and when I reread my statement I realize the registrar who does such is still an individual or group using the perks of a registrar to register/taste names. Not like GoDaddy would suddenly start hand regging names to tm infringe and profit.

Over all very hard to ever regulate. Now in saying what I have if a registrar such as GoDaddy can see 1000 registered domains with the word verizon in them than perhaps some effort could be made bt again the registrar is now open to litigation again. Big circle to no where.

 

[Gerry]

I just do not see how a registrar could pratically dis-allow or block tm names from being registered.

For starters it's just not practically to scan every name at every stage.

Secondly who determines what a tm is and is not or furthermore who is to say the registrar does not start being sued by clients for name deletion or blocking and all the legal implications that follow this...

Frankly unless a registrar itself is regitering and using tm names it is not viable to stop the registration of them. jmo

The technology is already here, in place, and being used.

The greatest issue is the parameters set is bothersome.

Most of these services are fee based.

Alerts are sent to the subscriber whenever a domain is registered with those parameters set by the subscriber. Therein lies the problem.

MaineBays.com - Regged and designed to be an online photo journal of a kayaking trip along the coast of Maine up to Nova Scotia.

Guess who I get a C&D from?

You guessed it - none other than eBay.

Suddenly every domain registered with those four letters in sequence E-B-A-Y is submitted to eBay's legal team.

I fought it and won.

Over the past few months, I have had more domains kicked off sedo than I have the entire time I have ever been with sedo. And some of these domains have been with them 3 or 4 yeats.

All of a sudden, its, "if it smells like, looks like, sounds like TM, then it is TM" and given the boot.

As for registrars - they know when a domain regged with Disney*****.com is regged its bogus. Equally so, Sedo, afternic, Snap, Pool and every one else knows its a bogus TM issue.

That service is available to them and most like already in place for them.

Sure, it may mean added work to them to verify.

Yet it may ultimately come down to that or face heavy heavy fines and penalties.

Think about it, why would Microsoft come after you or me when they can slap a claim on GoDaddy or Moniker or Whoever?

Irregardless who is a crappy registrar or not, does anyone think that the defendant in this case is doing any thing different or out of the norm of any other registrar?

That is why you are seeing a big outcry by retailers and merchants worldwide calling for ICANN to put a halt on all these new TLD's.

Wait until some class action suits are filed against ICANN for permitting and facilitating.

The heck with "it is solely the duty and responsibility of individual domainer" speak.

Sure, I know - guns don't kill, people do.

But that has not stopped many from suing the gun industry. Or even the tobacco industry.

Bad press and bad publicity can go to extremes to put the fear into all - from ICANN on down to the individual domainer.

A few publicized cases like this and it may very well shake the foundations of the industry. We already know that ICANN is a joke.

If the bible can exclaim in Luke 4:23, "Physician, heal yourself!" then I imagine a court can easily enforce. "ICANN, police thyself!"

 

[domaingenius]

Watch the next one, someone is going to sue ICANN and Verisign
rather than a Registrar, and in principle why not after all they are the
end of the chain ?.

DG

 

[TheLegendaryJP]

I wonder what the ratio of TM names orTM names in the fact they cotain words or letters tied to a TM are in relation to non tm names. hhhmmm

 

[denny007]

Isn't OnlineNIC a Chinese company?

I always thought is Iran...

They were awarded that imho because they did not respond so it must have been default judgement. Some short letter to judge would have dismissed it. Funny is now Verizon lawyers will get percentage from that judgement although thosed money are 100% unrecoverable. If they are on 25% they just got themself 8.5 million for couple of hours work. INteresting how lawyers are screwing companies more than anyone else.

 

[Focus]

Registrars are explicitly not held responsible for clients domains based on current cybersquatting law, same reason they can park them, they are not going to collect, waste of legal resources unless the registrar itself registered and owned the domains imo.

 

[denny007]

Registrars are explicitly not held responsible for clients domains based on current cybersquatting law, same reason they can park them, they are not going to collect, waste of legal resources unless the registrar itself registered and owned the domains imo.

That's true but also if I understand US legal system one can sue anyone for anything and request anything, if defendand ignores it it will go to default, that means whatever plaintiff asked for he will get.

 

[katherine]

Who exactly registered the infringing names ? Onlinenic or clients of theirs ?

 

[denny007]

Who exactly registered the infringing names ? Onlinenic or clients of theirs ?

My guess would be their clients, otherwise they are total morons

 

[Theo]

Verizon sucks btw

 

[Seraphim]

I wonder if Verizon will go after Sprint next, as they seem to own Vagizon.com...

 

[Focus]

Gay people stole the rainbow, Merry Christmas! k:

 

[Raider]

That's true but also if I understand US legal system one can sue anyone for anything and request anything, if defendand ignores it it will go to default, that means whatever plaintiff asked for he will get.

Your making it appear that US courts are nothing but rubber stamps, not the case, When a defendant fails to appear in a lawsuit, the plaintiff still needs to argue his case before the Judge, they also need to justify the dollar amount.