Law

ICANN IRT Report Open for Comment With Short Timeframe?

The Intellectual Property Constituency's draft report on trademark issues is now available for comment. The draft report was put together behind closed doors, which would appear to go against the normal policy development process at ICANN, which is quite worrying. Its contents, however, are even more disturbing... more

Sweden’s Internet Traffic Drops by a Third as New Anti-Piracy Law Kicks In

April 1st was the start of a new anti-piracy law in Sweden where, according to traffic data, an immediate and significant drop (over 30%) occurred in the nation's overall Internet traffic. Reported today by Royal Pingdom: "The combined traffic passing through Sweden's Internet Exchange Points usually peaks around 160 Gbit/s, but on Wednesday it peaked at around 110 Gbit/s. That's a huge drop in traffic, and is presumably a direct result of less file sharing taking place. ... Another interesting observation is that there was more traffic than usual during the last days before the law took effect. Were people hoarding films and music? On Tuesday (the day before the law went live) traffic peaked at nearly 200 GBit/s, roughly 25% above normal levels." more

The Jaynes Case is Finally Over

Last September the Virginia Supreme Court issued a surprise ruling that reversed its previous decision and threw out the state’s anti-spam law on First Amendment grounds. The Commonwealth made a last ditch appeal to the US Supreme Court, which I predicted they’d be unlikely to accept. I guessed right... more

Internet Records Retention Bill

A lot of pixels have been spilled lately over an Internet records retention bill recently introduced in both the House and the Senate. The goal is to fight child pornography. That's a worthwhile goal; however, I think these bills will do little to further it. Worse yet, I think that at least two of the provisions of the bill are likely to have bad side effects... more

WIPO’s Misleading Release

The World Intellectual Property Organization put out a release yesterday trumpeting an eight percent increase in domain name disputes handled by WIPO. In 2008 there were 2329 complaints filed with WIPO, the most ever. WIPO uses the increase to raise questions about the possible increase in the number of available generic top-level domains... more

The Third Wave of Internet Exceptionalism

From the beginning, the Internet has been viewed as something special and "unique." For example, in 1996, a judge called the Internet "a unique and wholly new medium of worldwide human communication." The Internet's perceived novelty has prompted regulators to engage in "Internet exceptionalism," crafting Internet-specific laws that diverge from regulatory precedents in other media. Internet exceptionalism has come in three distinct waves... more

1770 Domain Disputes Filed with National Arbitration Forum in 2008, Over 12K Since 1999

The National Arbitration Forum today announced that a total of 1,770 cases were filed in its domain name dispute resolution program in 2008. The National Arbitration Forum, approved by ICANN, provides domain name dispute resolution services under policies like the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). Nearly all 1,770 cases filed (98%) in 2008 involved UDRP domain names, like .com and .org and the rest involved usDRP domain names with the .us extension, according to the announcement... more

Deeply, Deeply Flawed Economic Report and Analysis of New gTLDs Posted by ICANN

The reports and analysis by Dr. Dennis Carlton are deeply, deeply flawed. I will prepare a long rebuttal to it in the coming weeks, but wanted to go on the record early as to its weaknesses. The analysis appears to be based on a very limited review of the market for domain names, and utilizes little actual data. It fails to even consider how nuanced the market for domain names has become, and how registry operators can exploit those nuances, including tiered-pricing... more

European Commission Can Register ‘galileo.eu’, Even if It Deprives Owner of Identical Trademark

When it drafted the .eu regulation EC 874/2004, the Commission reserved for itself a (long) list of domain names. One of them was galileo.eu. For obvious reasons, Galileo Lebensmittel GmbH & Co. KG claimed before the Courf of First Instance that the Commission's decision to reserve galileo.eu should be annulled... more

IRMA Threatens Irish ISPs

I don't want to get into the entire Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) vs Eircom and IRMA vs ISPs debacle. The only reason I'm even writing this is because I'm getting a bit tired of all the "quotes" of "quotes" and other unclear and misleading things that people have been saying about ISPs over the last few weeks. more

Peer-to-Peer Gambling Wins in the Washington Court of Appeals

Adding to the flurry of gambling news of late, the Washington Court of Appeals issued a decision today that found peer-to-peer betting company (betcha.com) did not violate Washington state gambling laws. The court runs through some other issues underlying the statute, but the net result is that Betcha is off the hook... for now. Read more... more

Outdated Whois Information Might Lead to False Light Tort: Meyerkord v. Zipatoni

It's a late entry, but this opinion may be a dark horse candidate for the most bizarre case of 2008. Meyerkord was a Zipatoni employee and listed as the registrant on domain names at Zipatoni's Register.com account. Meyerkord left in 2003. In 2006, Zipatoni ran an astroturfing viral campaign for Sony to promote the Play Station Portable at the domain alliwantforxmasisapsp.com... Unfortunately for Sony -- and Meyerkord -- the campaign did not go well. more

Pattishall Client Prevails in Ground-Breaking Domain Name Class Action

My Pattishall colleagues Brett August, Bradley Cohn and Alexis Payne recently won another round in a closely watched lawsuit involving Google and others regarding allegedly unfair use of domain names. The plaintiffs had attempted to bring a class action against multiple defendants for purported trademark infringement, cybersquatting and deceptive trade practices. more

CircleID’s Top 10 Posts of 2008

Here is a list of the most viewed news and blog postings that were featured on CircleID in 2008... Best wishes for 2009 and Happy New Year from all of us here at CircleID. more

Vulcan Golf v. Google Class Certification Denied

This is a complex lawsuit by trademark owners attacking domaining and the role of the Google AdSense for Domains program in funding domaining activity. When I first blogged on the case in 2007, I wrote: "the lawsuit could effectively fall apart if the judge rejects formation of a class. Trademark class action lawsuits are rare for good reason..." Last week, the court ruled on class certification, and perhaps not surprisingly, the court denied certification -- giving Google and the other defendants an early Christmas gift. more