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
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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
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cut beyond
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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
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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
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Novartis sells BENEFIBER is a container that looks like this:

It owns a registration for the configuration of the container. The drawing in the registration looks like this:

The mark is described in the registration as:

. . . the design of a cylindrical bottle, the bottle having tapered sides near the top of the bottle, and on the bottle, a circular banner featuring the wording “BENEFIBER” and “FIBER SUPPLEMENT”, the design of spoon containing powder, and curved lines indicating motion. The broken lining indicating a lid is not part of the mark but is merely intended to show the position of the mark.

Renew Life is a competitor. It used to sell its FIBERSMART product in a container that looked like this:

Last year, Novartis had a manufacturing problem that interrupted the supply of BENEFIBER. Although Novartis is ramping up production, for now there seem to be shortages. Renew Life has run ads that look like this:

and have changed the container of FIBERSMART to look like this:

so Novartis filed a lawsuit that looks like this:

novartis v renew life
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Prior registrant for TIMELINES sues Facebook. FB fails at summary judgment to establish that TIMELINES is generic or descriptive, or that FB was not using it as a trademark.

timelines v facebook SJ
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