Gregory's Server
@karlauerbach
One of the most insidious examples was Uzi Nissan vs. Nissan Motor Corporation. Uzi Nissan owned nissan dot com, under which he operated several private businesses. It was obviously a legitimate use of the domain. When Nissan Motors decided to join the web, they found that "their" domain was already taken, so they politely asked him to sell it to them.
Just kidding. They started throwing lawyers at him, suing him for cybersquatting and trademark infringement (even though Uzi did not use any of their registered trademarks). They kept appealing and launching new suits, and Uzi Nissan kept fighting them. Sadly, the corporation eventually won when Uzi Nissan passed away.
@violet @chriswho I am personally aware of these kinds of situations, not only because of my involvement with ICANN but also because our company (and myself) have had (and still have) nice three letter domain names in .com and .org (sometimes with pairs in each of those TLDs.)
(We've sold some, given some away [we didn't realize their marke value at the time], and been threatened. Fortunately we have had these since before the dawn of the world wide web, so we can play a pretty big "we were there first" trump card.)
I believe domain names are slowly fading as good trademark properties, but I doubt that it will ever go away.
I wrote this in 2017...
Domain Names Are Fading From User View
https://www.cavebear.com/cavebear-blog/fading-domain-names/
@violet @chriswho I am personally aware of these kinds of situations, not only because of my involvement with ICANN but also because our company (and myself) have had (and still have) nice three letter domain names in .com and .org (sometimes with pairs in each of those TLDs.)
(We've sold some, given some away [we didn't realize their marke value at the time], and been threatened. Fortunately we have had these since before the dawn of the world wide web, so we can play a pretty big "we were there...