Cybersquatting hits record heights

 

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By Reuters

Posted on 16 Mar 2009 at 09:03

A new report has revealed that celebrities and companies filed a record number of "cybersquatting" cases in 2008, as famous names increase in value.

United Nations body, the World Intellectual Property Organization, claims it handled 2,329 cases during 2008.

Among the high profile websites in dispute were references to Madrid's 2016 Olympics bid, the BBC, Yale University, as well as Arsenal and Scarlett Johansson. Company names such as Ebay, Google and Nestle were also referenced.

As the cases hit record levels, WIPO has warned that the rollout of new generic top-level domain names by ICANN could provide new scope for trademarked names to be abused, or at least make it harder for the trademark owners to monitor them.

"The creation of an unknowable and potentially vast number of new gTLDs raises significant issues for rights holders, as well as internet users generally," says WIPO director-general Francis Gurry.

Gurry says his agency is working with ICANN on "pre- and post-delegation procedures" to check the proposed new suffixes and help avoid future litigation.

How such suffixes are used and by whom would be important. A fruit-growing company using the .apple suffix would not have the same effect as a company registering a website "ipod.apple."

Gurry told a news conference that trademarks that had no other meaning, such as Sony and Kodak, were stronger and easier to defend than those based on general words or names, which could be ambiguous.