Category: Trademarks

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News Trademarks

It’s official: Google owns Photovine.com

Google Photovine

Just over a week ago, on June 18, I wrote about Google filing a trademark application for “Photovine” and speculated that the company owned the domain name, photovine.com, after the Whois records switched to MarkMonitor and DNStination from its previous owner.

Now it’s official — Google owns the domain, photovine.com. 

On June 23, the Whois record started showing Google as the owner.

Registrant:
        DNS Admin
        Google Inc.
        1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
         Mountain View CA 94043
        US

    Domain Name: photovine.com

        Registrar Name: Markmonitor.com
        Registrar Whois: whois.markmonitor.com
        Registrar Homepage: http://www. markmonitor.com

 Created on…………..: 2004-10-28.
    Expires on…………..: 2013-10-28.
    Record last updated on..: 2011-06-23.

    Domain servers in listed order:

    gdm1.photovine.com
    gdm0.photovine.com

You might also notice that the domain has its own nameservers, right now though, no other domain names are located there.

Google has not officially announced anything about Photovine, however there has been a lot of online discussion about what the service may be, based on the trademark application.

As of today, a message on the website simply reads: Nothing to see here, move along.

Discussion: The Next Web

Categories
Disputes National Arbitration Forum News Trademarks

Looks like Arizona State wants SunDevils.com, a naturist website

Arizona State Sparky the Sun Devil

The domain sundevils.com was first registered back in 1999 and throughout the years has had a lot of different uses, including re-directing to the website of Diablo Sun Devils, a naturist club founded in the San Francisco Bay Area that publishes nude photographs of women online.  Its motto, “Dedicated to bringing the freedom and joy of social nudism and naturism to women everywhere.”

For Arizona State University, home of the Sun Devils, it looks like enough is enough.

A complaint (case no. 1393853) has now been filed with the National Arbitration Forum (“NAF”). 

Though the complainant isn’t officially known just yet, it would only make sense that Arizona State filed the domain dispute over sundevils.com, which has claim to variety of trademarks with the United States Patent and Trademark Office dating back to the 1980s.

ASU does use thesundevils.com, which re-directs to its official athletics site on thesundevils.cstv.com, but unsuspecting visitors who type sundevils.com into the browser’s address bar might find themselves in for a shocking surprise. 

In the mid-2000s, the owner of sundevils.com did for a time, re-direct the URL to thesundevils.com according to screenshot history, but considering a number of factors such as having trademark rights, this could be a quick open and shut case for the National Arbitration Forum.

In 2008, the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona won a dispute over the domain arizonawildcats.com.

Discussion: Deadspin 

(Photo of Sparky “hand waver” via Arizona State University)

Categories
Disputes News Trademarks WIPO

Pharmaceutical Product Development wins case to get PPD.com from its owner

ppd

Updated June 27, 2011, 2:53 PM:  The decision has been published on the WIPO website. 

**

It is a baffling case.  A global contract research organization providing drug discovery, development and lifecycle management services, will get the three-letter domain ppd.com, according to a WIPO UDRP decision handed down this week ordering the name transferred.

Pharmaceutical Product Development, Inc (who uses the web address ppdi.com) filed a complaint against Damian Macafee (a.k.a James M. Van Johns) back in April 2011 which caught the attention of other bloggers around the domain industry like Elliot Silver who wrote, “I really hate seeing UDRP filings for three letter .com domain names. In my opinion, three letter acronyms usually have many different meanings, and it’s generally tough to say who would have a right to own the name.”

Details of the WIPO UDRP decision have yet to be released, but are expected to be posted online in the next few days.

Damian Macafee owns over 1,000 domain names, many of which are three-letter .com and .net names. 

Over the last 10+ years, Damian’s had to fight a number of disputes. 

He lost the case to keep baseballweekly.com starting back in 2000, then went on to lose oxford-online.com, resicom.com, attworldnet.com, fredricksofhollywood.com, carrefour.net, micorosft.com, walkman.net, and adm.org.

Although the WIPO panel determined that it was “somewhat questionable” adm.org was registered in bad faith, Damian still lost the case because the panel asserted he had registered and used domain names in bad faith in the past.

The only case he’s successfully defended to date at WIPO involved fcc.org in 2004.  The complaint was filed by Family & Children’s Center Inc.  Damian won after the panel found that the complainant had not established that he had registered the domain name in bad faith.  The complainant was also not the owner of a registered trademark or service mark for FCC.

Damian Macafee, I imagine, hasn’t been too happy about domain disputes filed against him over the years.  Screenshot history for the domain name ppd.com and many others in his portfolio display the words “F**k You”, according to DomainTools.

I’ve reached out to Damian to discover more about the case and will update this post if I receive a response.

Categories
News Trademarks Video Games

Will Zynga give The Sims on Facebook a run for its money with Familyville?

Zynga Familyville

Electronic Arts is making some big waves in the social gaming world this week amid rumors the company is buying PopCap Games a direct competitor of Zynga.  But that’s not the only news regarding EA and social gaming.  In the fierce competition for the next top game title on Facebook, EA announced that it would be bring the world’s most popular life simulation game “The Sims” to the world’s biggest social network “Facebook”.

You read it here first: After some domain name sleuthing, I have strong evidence that Zynga will answer EA’s challenge with its own yet-to-be released life simulation game on Facebook called Familyville.

That’s right Zynga fans, along with other blockbuster titles like Cityville and Farmville, Zynga may be launching Familyville sooner than later in response to EA’s announcement in early June.

Some Whois history and recent name server changes on the domain name Familyville.com are what lead me to believe that Zynga is working on its next mega hit.

Whois History

In March 2011, ownership of the domain familyville.com changed from its previous owner (Internet Computing) to  Rob Holmes – founder & CEO of IPCybercrime, the very same company that acquired the domain cityville.com on behalf of Zynga for $38,225 at Moniker in June 2010. 

Cityville went on to become the first game in Facebook history to reach 100 million monthly active users.

Here’s a look at the Whois record from March 2011.

Domain name: familyville.com

Administrative Contact:
   –
   Rob Holmes (rob @ipcybercrime.com)
   101EParkBlvd.#400
   Plano, TX 75074
   US

In late April though, the Whois record switched again, this time to GoDaddy’s Domains by Proxy, a Whois privacy service regularly used by Zynga for many of its domain names such as rewardville.com.

Nameserver change

Another change occurred just this week, with the domain name changing from its previous name server to COTDNS.NET, the same nameserver where many of Zynga’s most popular domains reside, including rewardville.com and hangingwithfriends.com.

cotdns

The Sims Social on Facebook hasn’t been released just yet.

But if this rumor of mine proves to be true, EA may want to speed things up a bit on Facebook. 

As of today, Zynga has not filed for a trademark on the word familyville in the U.S. or Europe.  But there’s nothing odd about that;  Zynga didn’t file for a trademark on Empires and Allies until shortly after its launch. 

With social gaming competition becoming fierce, Zynga has gotten smarter with its trademark filings and domain name registrations.

Discussion: The Business Insider, Kotaku, Kotaku Australia, Techmeme, Gamezebo, VentureBeat, Games.com, and Pocket Gamer.

Categories
Disputes Movies National Arbitration Forum News Trademarks

Domain dispute over ManofSteel.com, film set for release in December 2012

Man of Steel

Updated July 20, 2011:  Turns out the complainant in the case was DC Comics, not Warner Bros.  A single-member panel has ruled in favor of DC Comics and ordered the domain name to be transferred.  Details here.

**

It appears Warner Bros wants the domain name ManofSteel.com for its big film project set to release in December 2012.

A complaint (case no. 1395018) was filed with the National Arbitration Forum (“NAF”) this week.  Though the complainant isn’t known at this time, DC Comics a subsidiary company of Warner Bros has owned the trademark on “The Man of Steel” since the 1980s. 

Over the last ten years, Warner Bros has filed (and won) a number of domain disputes including chasingsuperman.com, batman-costume.com, gilligansisland.com, harrypotterzone.com, justice-league.com, and dozens more.  The company’s claims were denied twice, once over djbatman.com and the second time over daisydukes.com which is owned by Rick Schwartz.  Rick Schwartz won the case after Warner Bros had not satisfied its burden of proof to establish bad faith registration and use under paragraph 4(a)(iii) of the Policy.

In the case of ManofSteel.com, which is currently registered to a LBR Enterprises in California, chances are the domain name will be transferred to Warner Bros. if they are the complainant.

The company also doesn’t own TheManofSteel.com, but no dispute has been filed as of yet.  The domain name is currently listed for sale at Sedo for $300 USD, a cheap price compared to what the company may have to pay in legal fees (should it file a complaint) for a legal dispute that is not guaranteed to go in their favor.