"You agree that Go Daddy or its licensor holds all rights, title and interest in all Software and Services and all intellectual property, including other rights related to intangible property, unless otherwise indicated. You acknowledge that no title or interest in such Intellectual Property Rights is being transferred to You and You agree to make no claim of interest in any such Services or Software."
Ok I just saw it. So godaddy can do whatever they want with a customers domain name. Really worrying. STARGATE hasnt such an agreement. Until now I didnt spend time with reading registrars legal agreements. I still have some names with godaddy but I will transfer them all away by time. Registrant owns domain until he gives it up his property in advance to a registrar who has such agreement. Im wondering that godaddys agreement hasnt been fought by someone and can be legal.
Just to stir things a little, been looking into cyberlaw and for those really interested can look into ordering the bible "Cyberlaw, problems of policy and jurisprudence in the information age, 3rd edition"
"According to longstanding precedent and practice, the first court seized of jurisdiction of property, or asserting jurisdiction in a case requiring control over property, may exercise that jurisdiction to the exclusion of any other court."
This applies to in rem or quasi in rem cases and requires federal courts to decline jurisdiction over a particular property or res over which another court has already asserted jurisdiction.
The interesting case that used this doctrine was Cable News Network L.P. vs Cnnews.com. CNN Delaware LLP with principal place in Atlanta, Georgia whereas Maya Online Broadband Network (HK) is a Chinese company that is a subsidiary of a second Chinese company, Shanghai Online Broadband network.
Another interesting case of GlobalSantaFe Corp. vs GlobalSantaFe.com. Follows same format, the Corp based in US, the registrar Hangang Systems in Korea.
October 5 2001 filed ACPA in rem action against the domain name and won the order in April 1 2002 which directed Verisign and Hangang to transfer the domain to plaintiffs within 10 days of receipt of the order.
Hangang files injustion on April 9 2002 with District Court of Seoul and judge's write-up below:
"Tue, we cannot require a foreign court to yield when the US court was the first to assume jurisdiction, but neither can we acquiesce in a rule under which the US court recedes regardless of its priority in time. That rule would empower a defendant in the US to oust our courts of in rem jurisdiction merely by filling its own action int he courts of any hospitable country -- of which there would be no shortage if that were our rule."
Traditionally you could have Denny's store in London and somebody could open a Denny's store in Ontario even if you have previously established a TM in the name. The idea was that customers would not likely be confused due to geographical disparity...
With the internet though and domains one interesting case Panavision vs Panavision.com which was a website owned by Dennis Toeppen which included photos of the city of Pana, Ilinois. The District court and Ninth Circuit Court ruled that Toeppen had violated the Federal Trademark Dilution Act because Panavision's inability to use the panavision.com website diminished the "capacity of the Panavision marks to identify and distinguish Panavision's goods and services on the internet" (Panavision Int'l vs Toeppen, 141 F.3d 1316 (9th Cir. 1998).
In so doing, the court was, in effect expanding the geographical reach of TM law, at least with regard to domain names. So, while you still couldn't sue the guy in Ontario for owning violating your TM by choosing a confusingly similar name for its store (based on geographical disparity), you might now have a cause of action concerning dennys.com domain name even if someone registered the name ahead of you.
This led to the expansion of ACPA act and thus in the online context, trademark law is now far more likely to operate extraterritorially.
The issue is that any domain name relies on the Verisign registry an entity located within US district so your options are the following:
a) current registrar of the domain can cancel it by directing the registry to delete the registration from the Registry Database
b) Registry for the pertinent top-level domain can disable the domain by placing it "ON HOLD"
c) Registry can cancel a domain name by acting unilaterally to delete the registration information without the pertinent registrar's cooperation.
Again registering, transferring or deleting a domain typically involves interaction between the registrar and the registry and is governed by several contracts such as the registry-registrar agreement, the registrar accreditation agreement and the .com registration agreement. Thus, Verisign for each domain name in the ".com" TLD is responsible for maintaining and propagating the following information: i) domain name ii) the IP addresses of NS1 and NS2 of the registrar for the domain name iii) expiration date for registration.
The (c) option I listed above essentially instructs Verisign to act unilaterally to cancel the domain name by deleting the registration information in the registry database and removing the domain name from the TLD zone file without regard to current registrar's lack of cooperation and the normal contractual procedures for cancellation (as per Verisign & Registrar agreements).
Enom took option (b) but there's nothing to stop Verisign from deleting the domain should Enom or Bodog don't hand over the domain...
John B. can add more insight, but the way I see it Bodog is pretty much lost cause right now when it comes to bodog.com unless they counter-sue on some grounds that they are not in violation of the patent in dispute...
