Friday, July 7, 2000

Plans for New Domain Suffixes Have Colleges Girding for Fresh Trademark Fights By ANDREA L. FOSTER Entrepreneurs may be salivating over plans by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers to add new Internet domain suffixes, but officials at colleges and universities foresee only aggravation from cybersquatters. Already, Stanford University and Yale University, to name two, complain about the time and resources they spend fighting cybersquatters -- those who seek to profit from an institution or business with name recognition by incorporating that name into a new Web address. The universities predict that the proposal to add new "top-level domains" in addition to ".com," ".edu," ".gov," ".org," and ".net" -- will add to their work. "New top-level domains create new opportunities for cybersquatters, so it will just give legitimate trademark owners more new fields they feel compelled to protect," says Daniel Updegrove, director of information-technology services at Yale University. The corporation, which manages and regulates domain names, is scheduled to announce the new domain names on November 1. Among the names being considered are ".shop," ".banc" (for financial institutions), and ".firm." Mitchell Stabbe, a Washington lawyer who specializes in trademark issues, says higher-education institutions might be spared some trouble if the Internet corporation decides to offer trademark owners first rights to the new domain names. He encourages colleges and universities to lobby the Internet corporation for such a policy and also to express their views to the International Trademark Association, an organization that advances the rights of trademark owners globally. "There will likely be a 'land rush' of registration requests in the first hours or days of the new domains," warns the trademark association on its Web site. "Trademark owners have an interest in avoiding a repetition of the cybersquatting nightmare." The trademark group encourages its members to submit comments to the Internet corporation before that group meets July 15 in Yokohama, Japan, to discuss the new domain names. The deadline for public comments is Monday, and they can be submitted online. Mr. Updegrove says his division at Yale has designed a computer program that searches for domain names that include the word Yale. The results are turned over to university lawyers. Stanford has contracted with a service that informs the university each week of domain names registered that use "Stanford." "It's more and more difficult to keep up with the level of activity," says Shelly Hebert, director of business development for the university. Such activity, however, does serve to forewarn Stanford about new businesses that want to exploit the university's name, she says. Mr. Stabbe says colleges should be encouraged by two new legal remedies: the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, which took effect on November 29, 1999, and the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy, which took effect on January 3. The act makes it a civil offense to register a domain name that mimics another's trademark. Cybersquatters can be fined up to $100,000 in damages, and the court can order cancellation or forfeiture of the domain name. Harvard was one of the first universities to invoke the act when it sued a Web-site designer for registering more than 65 domain names that included Harvard or Radcliffe, including Harvard-lawyers.com, Harvardfaculty.com, and Radcliffecollege.com. The case was settled March 14, with the defendant, Michael Rhys, agreeing to transfer the domain names to Harvard. Under the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy, the trademark owner faces a higher hurdle: He must persuade a panel of arbitrators that the cybersquatter used as well as registered the domain name in bad faith. The panel can then order the domain name canceled or transferred. The advantages of the administrative proceeding are that a decision is usually reached within 45 days (typically faster than under the anti-cybersquatting act), legal costs are contained, and the trademark owner is given the benefit of the doubt. Trademark owners have won 77 percent of the complaints submitted for the administrative remedy, Mr. Stabbe says. Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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