A Different Man U

Manchester University of Indiana sues apparel vendor.

manchester university

BUCCELATI and LAURA v LAURA BUCCELATI

Owners of the BUCCELATI trademark sue a Buccelati family member. To oversimplify: you can’t use your own name as a trademark if to do so causes confusion. Some prior posts of the topic here.

BUCCELATI

The Defendant Formerly Known As The Plaintiff

Former business associate of plaintiff tagTrends, starts competing business under the name tagTrends, changes it, then advertises itself as ‘formerly tagTrends.’

tagtrends

WILLINGWAY v THE WILLINGWAY

Health services provider WILLINGWAY seeks TRO against Mariel Hemingway for use of THE WILLINGWAY for health-oriented book and kit.

willingway memo for tro

UW (Wyoming) v THE POINTE AT UW

University of Wyoming sues off-campus housing development named THE POINTE AT UW. What if it were named THE POINT OFF UW? THE POINTE NEAR UW? (doesn’t have quite the same ring).

uw v pointe uw

GAC Communique on the New gTLDs

The Government Advisory Committee of ICANN has released a communique. ‘Advice to the ICANN Board’ begins on page 3, and makes observations such as ‘singular and plural versions of the string as a TLD could lead to potential consumer confusion.’ Annexes I and II are controversial only because we live in bizarro ICANN world. They deal with, among other things, closed generics, ‘high-risk’ generics, and other problematic strings. In theory, if the advice of the GAC is based on consensus, then it creates a presumption that the advice should be followed. Background here.

gac communique

CUT BEYOND BRILLIANT v CUT BEYOND BRILLIANT

cut beyond

Can UDRP Threat by CitizenHawk Give Rise to DJ Action?

Interesting complaint. Registrant for domain names USSEARCHREPORTS.COM and NATURALIZES.COM brings DJ complaint based on a threat of a UDRP made by CitizenHawk, a brand protection company that brings UDRPs on behalf of trademark owners (such as the owners of US SEARCH.COM (sic – there is a space in the registered trademark) and NATURALIZERS.COM. This complaint raises a fairly unusual issue: does the threat of a UDRP give rise to standing under the Declaratory Judgment Act? Bear in mind that a UDRP is appealable (or more accurately, can give rise to a de novo review) under ACPA. Also bear in mind that CitizenHawk is not a law firm and therefore itself couldn’t initiate a federal action on behalf of its clients. Should that matter?

Here’s an early 1st Circuit case on the interplay between the UDRP and federal subject matter jurisdiction, Gallen v Corinthians.

p.s. Interesting typo in paragraph 7 with regard to Registrant’s domain name.

dj citizenhawk

UDRP Involving Name Registered Through Identity Theft

UDRP Complaint re ARAMCOS.NET. The ‘title’ Registrant, as in the person whose name shows up in the authoritative Whois, contacts WIPO and indicates that he (or she) is the victim of identity fraud, and had nothing to do with the registration of the domain name. After being informed of the UDRP, the operator of the domain name in question actually contacted the ‘registration service provider’ and allegedly proffered a fake passport in registrant’s name. The complaint isn’t clear as to how the ‘operator’ learned of the existence of the UDRP (however I’ve seen instances where all the contact info but for the admin email is fake – so there may have been a real working email attached to the name).

Complaint granted, domain name transferred. Decision here.

HEARPOD v EARPOD

hearpod v earpod