6th Circuit decision upholding an award of punitive damages under ACPA against an individual who registered the name FORDWORLD.COM and attempted to sell it to Ford Motors. The case provides stautory construction as to how to apply ACPA to domain names registered prior to the enacment date of ACPA (November 1, 1999).  Also, while courts may sometimes apply analogous state statute of limitation to federal actions, there is no statute of limitations applied to Lanham Act actions.

Aside: FORD is up there with DELTA and UNITED in the list of well-known marks that are not exclusive.  This fact is usually deployed in the domain name debate in the context: “how do we know that the registrant of FORDxxxxx.COM targeted Ford Motors and not Ford Models, for example.  Well, in this case, the registrant sent an email to the CEO of Ford offering to sell the name.

Ford Motor Company  v. Peter Catalanotte,  No. 00-75260, (6th Cir. August 28, 2003).