Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in trade volume (as of January 2018) recently lost a domain dispute to Binancé, an Australian florist. The domain in question here is binance.com.au. Binance filed the complaint on April 15, 2020, and the proceedings began on April 17, 2020. Ashurst Australia was representing Binance, and its lawyers argued that trademark for Binance had been...
Zoom, the popular video conferencing app might be negotiating with Google Cloud to make its calls safer. The COVID-19 restrictions had skyrocketed the use of Zoom with institutions and companies forced to operate remotely. With its increased usage, in no time were experts able to expose and call out Zoom on its erroneous and risky policies, including several loopholes in users’ security and...
Nominet, the registry for .uk domains released, the yearly report on domain disputes it handled in 2019. It introduced its Dispute Resolution System back in 2001 for this purpose. eBay and Gumtree, Pierre Balmain SA, the Taunton Angling Association, and Groupon make up some of the most noteworthy cases of the year. Now, let’s look at some stats: 0.007% of the total .uk domains i.e. 801 disputed...
Facebook has filed a lawsuit against 12 imposter domain names which have been registered by a private Indian proxy service Compsys Domain Solutions. The domains were allegedly designed to deceive users by impersonating Facebook owned apps – its namesake along with WhatsApp and Instagram. The firm registered misleading domains like facebook-verify-inc.com, instagramhjack.com and videocall-whatsapp...
Little Bean; a chickpea-based, dairy-free ice-cream shop; is re-branding to Little Chickpea after a trademark tussle with the behemoth baby food brand Gerber. The website LittleBean.com now redirects to the new LittleChickpea.com. The case is pretty similar to what changed Olympic Provisions to Olympia Provisions. The restaurateur Micah Camden said that he thought of the name Little Bean a year...
RDNH or Reverse Domain Name Hijacking when the owner of a trademark tries to secure a domain name by claiming a “cybersquatting” case against the owner of the domain. This usually happens when the owner of the domain is a smaller firm or an individual. Paragraph 15(e) of the UDRP Rules defines reverse domain name hijacking as the filing of a complaint in bad faith, resulting in the abuse of the...
So, Fox has filed a trademark for “Ok Boomer”. The television giant probably aims at developing a reality, comedy and/or game show called OK BOOMER. Many others have also filed a trademark on the name. Kevin Yen, a New Yorker, also filed for a brand of clothing. A Pittsburgh-based company filed for a brand of stickers and decals. William Grundfest also claimed the name for a series of live stage...
“At first, I thought I was fighting to save rubber trees, then I thought I was fighting to save the Amazon rainforest. Now I realise I am fighting for humanity.” – Chico Mendes, Brazilian Environmentalist Much has been said about the dispute over the top-level domain .amazon between the two nations Brazil and Peru and the e-commerce titan Amazon. When ICANN offered new TLDs, Amazon was...
For young startups, prospective entrepreneurs, small companies and people, buying a good keyword domain has always been a scary thing because of the millions of trademarks out there, in hundreds of countries. The trademark holders watch keyword domain registrations and waste no time to pounce upon if they find even a remote chance of infringement. It costs just $1500 to file what is known as a...
Amazon has over 20000 domains in its portfolio, which is worth over $5 million. Majority of these domain names are some variation or combination of keywords like ‘Amazon’, ‘kindle’, etc. but the most interesting thing about amazon’s portfolio is that Amazon has been a big buyer of second level domain names in new TLDs in recent times. Last month alone, I see 247 domains that were registered by...
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer. In addition, my thoughts and opinions change from time to time I consider this a necessary consequence of having an open mind.
My posts on Domain Magazine are intended to provide a semi-permanent point in time snapshot and manifestation of the various memes running around my brain, and as such any thoughts and opinions expressed within out-of-date posts may not the same, nor even similar, to those I may hold today.