ANTICYBERSQUATTING CONSUMER PROTECTION ACT PDF
What is the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act of and does it prohibit The act provides a cause of action to a trademark holder when someone. What is cybersquatting? Cybersquatting is the act of purchasing a domain name that uses the names of existing businesses, which are usually trademarked. The Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (“ACPA”)’ provides a cause of action for trademark owners against cybersquatters2, who regis- ter domain.
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Moreover, a few trends are discernible. The ACPA has been effectively used to combat a number of wrongs. But if someone is operating a web site under another brand owner’s trademarksuch as a site called ”cocacola.
Unfortunately, some cybersquatters have read these cases carefully and have taken the necessary precautions to cpnsumer themselves from liability. The Committee also heard testimony that Warner Bros. The Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act: The trademark counterfeiting provision of the Lanham Act also allows parties to elect to receive statutory damages instead of actual damages or profits, but similarly fails to provide guidelines to courts for determining an appropriate award.
Statutory damages under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act
The ACPA has also been successfully used to prevent the tarnishment of a mark by its use in the domain of a Web site containing pornographic or other materials with which the mark holder does not wish his mark associated. All articles with dead external links Articles with dead external links from October Articles with permanently dead external links.
The ACPA is not the only trademark cause of action providing for statutory damages that does not give courts meaningful guidance in determining statutory damages. But note that courts have concluded “that the words of the statute are broader than this political stimulus that led to its enactment.
While such a use is evidence of defendant’s good faith, it is not dispositive as “to recognize such an exemption would eviscerate the protection of the bill by suggesting a blueprint for cybersquatters who would simply create criticism sites in order to immunize themselves from liability despite their bad faith intentions.
Chasser, “Early cases include Intermatic, Inc.
Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act
In “exceptional cases,” protfction fees can also be recovered. For example, existing law does not deal with cases where cybersquatters are warehousing domain names, essentially holding an inventory of trademarks that he won’t use but intends portection sell to the rightful owner at extortionate prices.
Specifically, Congress noted that with the development of case law extending infringement and dilution actions to include domain name violations, cybersquatters had become increasingly clever in their tactics. As long as the domain name is dropped within five days, the cybersquatter will recover all of his initial registration costs under current rates.
Others register actt marks as domain name s and warehouse those marks with the hope of selling them to the highest bidder, whether it be the trademark owner or someone else.
According to various reports, millions of domain names registered every month are dropped after being tasted, and only a small percentage of names are permanently registered.
Three of these factors focus on potential legitimate uses by the defendant of the domain, the presence of which support a finding that defendant did not act in bad faith. In the earliest case to do so, the Fifth Circuit held that the purpose of antkcybersquatting ACPA’s statutory damages provision is similar to the statutory damages provision in the Copyright Act, which was intended not only to compensate the rights owner, but also to discourage wrongful conduct.
The domain name registrar or registry or other domain name authority is not liable for injunctive or monetary relief except in the case of bad faith or reckless disregard. Such is also true of the submission of false contact information to a domain name registrar, which is taken as a sign the defendant neither wants to be identified nor held accountable for his conduct. See Sporty’s Farm L.
The practice of cybersquatting harms consumers, electronic commerceand the goodwill equity of valuable U. Statutory Damages and Cybersquatting Duration The Fifth Circuit has provided some guidance on awarding statutory damages in relation to the duration of the cybersquatting.
Registration of multiple domain names containing prrotection owned by third parties also evidences bad faith. Courts thus routinely look to offers by the defendant to sell the domain name as evidence of his bad faith. Prior to the enactment of the ACPA, the first definition of cybersquatters in the federal courts was articulated by the Norther District of Illinois:.
The ACPA protects both registered and unregistered common-law marks.
Statutory damages under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act – Lexology
These include “cybersquatting,” which occurs when a registrant obtains a domain name containing another’s mark and offers to sell it to the mark holder for a tidy sum. The ACPA has also prorection used to prevent domain registrants from improperly profiting from the commercial use of another’s mark, such as by selling or displaying ads for products anticgbersquatting compete with those of the mark holder at a domain containing the mark.
Navigation Catalyst Systems, Inc. Reverse domain hijacking Cybersquatting Domain name drop list Domain name speculation Domain sniping Domain parking Domain tasting Domain name consumr Doppelganger domain Type-in traffic Typosquatting Domain name front running. Courts, particularly those in the United States where cybersquatting is an antifybersquatting pressing issue, have typically utilized traditional concepts in trademark law to provide some trademark owners with remedies for harm caused by piracy on the Internet.
We also heard the account of a cybersquatter purporting to sell Dell Computer products under the name ”dellspares. Hunn, Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act: Federal courts have concluded that UDRP decisions are not binding on them. If you can establish each of these elements — that the defendant registered, trafficked in or used a mark identical or confusingly similar to a distinctive or famous mark with a bad faith intent to profit therefrom — you can use the ACPA antivybersquatting prevent the misuse of your mark in another’s domain.
For example, the Committee heard testimony regarding an Australian company operating on the Internet under the name ”The Best Domains,” which was offering such prtection name s as ”porsche. In rem proceedings can be commenced in a judicial district “in which the domain name registrar, domain name registry, or other domain name authority that registered or assigned the domain antiybersquatting [at issue] is located. Actual damages include the profits the domain name registrant made from his use of the mark, as well as losses sustained by the mark holder as a result of the domain name registrant’s actions, such as lost sales or harm to the mark’s reputation.