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Value add to Mr. Sumitra's take;
How serious is it
Take: It is serious enough for an corporate entity to loose serious customers thus downfall of a well established business model by violator.
does it amount to unfair practice
Take: Yes it does and few won illustrations citatory ref. are as follows;
A. The first case in India with regard to cyber squatting was ref.: Yahoo Inc. Vs. Aakash Arora & Anr., [1999 PTC (19) 201] where the defendant launched a website nearly identical to the plaintiff’s renowned website and also provided similar services. Here the court ruled in favour of trademark rights of U.S. based Yahoo. Inc (the Plaintiff) and against the defendant, that had registered itself as YahooIndia.com
A.1 The Bombay High Court in ref.: Rediff Communication Vs. Cyberbooth & Anr [AIR 2000 Bom. 27] observed that the value and importance of a domain name is like a corporate asset of a company. In this case the defendant had registered a domain name radiff.com which was similar to rediff.com. The court gave a decision in favour of the plaintiff.
A.2 In another case the defendant registered a number of domain names bearing the name Tata. It was held by the court that domain names are not only addresses but trademarks of companies and that they are equally important. ref.: Tata Sons Ltd Vs. Monu Kasuri & others [2001 PTC 432]
A.3 In ref.: Bennett Coleman & Co Ltd. Vs. Steven S Lalwani and Bennett Coleman & Co Ltd. Vs. Long Distance Telephone Company [Cases No D2000-0014 and 2000-0015, WIPO] the arbitration panel gave a decision in favour of the plaintiff. In this to the respondent had registered domain names www.theeconomictimes.com and the www.timesofindia.com with network solutions of the United States. These two names are similar to the names of the Plaintiff’s websites www.economictimes.com and www.timesoftimes.com. Another important fact was that the respondent’s websites using the domain names in contention redirect the users to a different website www.indiaheadlines.com which provided India related news.
A.4 In ref.: Satyam Infoway Ltd. Vs. Sifynet Solutions [2004 (6) SCC 145] the Respondent had registered domain names www.siffynet.com and www.siffynet.net which were similar to the Plaintiff’s domain name www.sifynet.com. Satyam (Plaintiff) had an image in the market and had registered the name Sifynet and various other names with ICANN and WIPO. The word Sify was first coined by the plaintiff using elements from its corporate name Satyam Infoway and had a very wide reputation and goodwill in the market. The Supreme Court held that “domain names are business identifiers, serving to identify and distinguish the business itself or its goods and services and to specify its corresponding online location.” The court also observed that domain name has all the characteristics of a trademark and an action of Passing off can be found where domain names are involved. The decision was in favour of the plaintiff.
A.5 In 2009, Internet software company Google Inc. won a cyber squatting case against an Indian teenager who had registered a domain name googblog.com. The domain name, Google contended, was confusingly similar to its trademark. Experts felt that complaints regarding cyber squatting were on the rise and organizations such as the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) were being approached by trademark holders to resolve such disputes. On May 15, 2009, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) ordered an Indian teenager, Herit Shah (Shah), who had been using the domain name 'googblog.com', to transfer the rights of the domain to Google Inc. (Google).ref.: Google Inc.Vs. Herit Shah [Case No. D2009-0405, WIPO]
Is there a protection in IT act
Take: As on date, domain names are not defined under any Indian law. S. 2 (z) of the Trade Marks Act, 1999, defines trademarks as marks capable of being represented graphically, distinguishing goods or services of one person from those of others. Mark is defined to include a “name” and any abbreviation thereof. The Act has a wide definition for services extending the ambit in relation to business of any commercial or industrial activity. The short point which the Court had to decide is whether a domain name has the characteristics of a trade or service which is available to potential users of the internet. The ICANN registration does not confer any intellectual property rights.
How to find who owns it
Take: By www.betterwhois.com for majority of top level domains one can use this free service and for specific country level domains you may ask us we will advise the link.
Which is the hosting agency & country
Take: By www.hostip.info or www.dnsstuff.com lookup.
What action can be taken
Take: By instituting Court proceedings or litigation and/or by Administrative Proceeding and by both. The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) Arbitration and Mediation Center deals with domain name disputes under the new Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) applicable to generic top-level domain names adopted by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) on August 26, 1999. The WIPO Center’s Domain Name Dispute Resolution service has been established specifically to administer domain name disputes with the availability of electronic case filing facilities and a well developed case administration system.
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