PALM BEACH, FL - “Domain squatting” – AKA cybersquatting – and “brand hijacking” are two internet-based threats that present unique dangers to both businesses and end users, opening up some to cybersecurity threats and brand/trademark damage including potential phishing and malware attacks. Domain squatting is registering or using a domain name to profit from a trademark belonging to a well-known brand, typically by registering a misspelled version of their URL to … [Read more...]
U.S. Supreme Court to Consider Trademark Rights on Generic Internet Domain Names
PALM BEACH, FL - On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider whether the addition of “.com” to a generic word or phrase can be trademarked when it reviews “United States Patent and Trademark Office v. Booking.com B.V.” on Docket No. 19-46 with the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. The issue has reached the highest court in the country after lower courts reversed the decisions of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ("USPTO") and Trademark … [Read more...]
Generic Domain “Naturals.com” Subject of WIPO Case; Complainant Uses “Naturals.in”
PALM BEACH, FL – The generic domain name “Naturals.com” is the subject of a WIPO proceeding with the complainant showing as “Ms.Veena Kumaravel” , who is the co-founder of “Naturals”, a beauty salon chain with over 500 locations throughout India. Kumaravel started the business with a partner in 2000 and the business was said in an interview to become “profitable” (and likely at least moderately known in India) by its forth year. The company currently operates on the … [Read more...]
Monster Two Letter Domain Asset “TM.com” For Sale; Listed in Industry Trade Pub WTR
PALM BEACH, FL – According to World Trademark Review, the monster domain asset “TM.com” is for sale and the exchange is being offered / handled by Mark Thomas of VIP Brokerage. Thomas was recently highlighted for selling the premium exact match GEO domain California.com for a whopping $3,000,000.00. ‘TM.com’ up for sale – The domain name ‘tm.com’, previously used by a company called TM Advertising, is up for sale. A representative for the current domain owner told WTR … [Read more...]
Panels Consistently Find That “Domain Investing” Is Legitimate Bona Fide Offering
PALM BEACH, FL – Upon reading recent news from “Neus News”, I stumbled onto an interesting find where Howard Neu, a long-time attorney for the domain name industry, was representing a domain owner in a case where Oath Inc. (now Verizon Media), the company that purchased Yahoo! related assets in 2017 for $4.83 billion, claimed the domain name “YMobile.com” was infringing on Yahoo! related trademarks such as “Y”’ and “Y!”, as well as “Y Mobile” (although Y Mobile is only held … [Read more...]
Yet Another Proper UDRP Decision Gets Highlighted In “The News”, WTF Is That?
WEST PALM BEACH – There are two main places my Internet travels will take me when I have some extra time to keep up with domain name newlines. These two places are, 1) Domaining.com, where I can find commentary on pretty much anything meaningful that is going on in the domain name space, and if I don’t find something that grabs’ my interest there, I’ll move on over to 2) Google News. If something in the domain space is not happening in at least one of these two places … [Read more...]
Founding Chair of ICANN: New gTLDs Will Make Lawyers, Registrars, Registries Rich
NEW YORK – This past week, another new gTLD domain name bit-the-dust when Richemont, the company behind Cartier jewelry and Mont Blanc pens, terminated its fifth dot-brand gTLD. Reading over some backscatter comments on the issue I was enlightened with the below video, from Esther Dyson, former Chairman of the ICANN Board and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who held back very little while she reminded people that she is clearly on record with her negative thoughts and … [Read more...]
The Birth of ICANN: “The Green Paper”
NEW YORK - In 1997, the United States government under then President Clinton began processes to remove its control over the Domain Name System by creating research and dialog on how control of domain names and IP addresses should be handled in the future - by a non-profit organization in the private sector. This resulted in a document which has become known as "The Green Paper" originally named "A Proposal to Improve the Technical Management of Internet Names and … [Read more...]
Internet Veteran, Nat Cohen Discusses His Experience and the ICA with NamePros
NEW YORK, NY – Nat Cohen, an Internet entrepreneur who began his 20+ year journey in domain investing back in 1997, sat with popular domain name forum NamePros.com in a video interview conducted by domaining community speaker and moderator Braden Pollack which took place at the industry’s largest event, NamesCon in Las Vegas this past January. Worth mentioning, over 1,400 people from all around the globe gathered at this year’s event. In the interview, Nat goes into great … [Read more...]