"Canadian" not Generic ....

[NameBox]

The "Globe and Mail" reports today ..

.... on a pending Court hearing regarding Canadian.biz. Molson's Brewery, maker of "Canadian" beer, took the domain holder to WIPO and won, based on their trademark of the term "Canadian". How ridiculous is that!!!

Here is a link:

http://www.icannwatch.org/article.php?sid=813

Molson's claims that it has all rights to the term Canadian and seeks the .biz to prevent the owner from possibly damaging the brand in the future.

What's next ...... are generics going to come under fire ... and only trademark "holders" allowed to register domains ...

Ridiculous!

 

Mind numbing.

 

[beatz]

So if i, living in germany ,not ever having heard of a beer that's name is "Canadian" would have registered canadian.biz for the purpose of building a site for canadian businesses - what would they tell me? Bad faith?
I can't believe those decisions do really happen.How can it be bad faith to register a true generic name?
And also, in REAL law a TM holder has TM rights for only a specific niche or market or product - so how come as soon as any company has ANY kind of TM for a name, they're automatically be seen as the rightful soon-to-be owners?
ICANN and WIPO are a damn scandal.

That's why i would always try to fight back in a REAL court if the domain is worth it.

 

despite what it says in the rules and staff reports, the udrp etc does give greater rights to tm holders online rather than offline.

But thats life, you just have to get on with business regardless and treat dispute resolution services as a form of taxation.

 

[Nic]

The inconsistent .biz STOP decisions keep on coming... in the latest batch, one panel found american.biz to be suitably generic to allow for its registrant to keep it despite American Airlines' trademark on the name in a narrow specialty. However, another panel found canadian.biz to be registered in bad faith due to the existence of a trademark on "Canadian" by the Molson brewery.

True Justice ?

 

[anothernewbie]

Gosh! I own ukrainian.biz


I think I should be very careful with the name

 

[Nic]

would not worry too much... at least not right now...dot biz had a long long way to go.

 

[dotsofdomains]

You would be well advised to get some business activity going at any .biz site or risk losing it to someone with trademark rights. Remember, ukrainian may be generic/descriptive as to ukraine or goods and services related to ukraine, but arbitrary as applied to a line of lingerie or baseball bats.

Bottom line: Sell something or provide a service under the domain or risk losing it.

 

[Zoobar]

Thought I would follow up and let people know how this attempt by Molson to cyberjack Canadian.biz went. I'm glad I live in Ontario.

They lost.

http://www.canada.com/search/site/story.asp?id=9FF2C767-97D9-49BD-A592-BE5FC65C435E

 

[fizz]

Congrats Douglas Black - and Molson has to pay his legal fees too