DEFINITIONS
Complainant: The party initiating a complaint
concerning a domain-name registration.
Oftentimes a trademark holder.
Dilution: The
“whittling away” or tarnishment of a
famous trademark.
Domain name: The name by which a
given site or page on the World Wide Web is identified. A domain name is comprised of a
second-level domain, a "dot," and a top-level domain (TLD). The
wording to the left of the "dot" is the second-level domain, and
the wording to the right of the "dot" is the TLD. Example: If the domain name
is "XYZ.COM," the term "XYZ" is a second-level
domain and the term "COM" is a TLD.
Fanzine: An
amateur-produced magazine written for a subculture of enthusiasts devoted
to a particular interest.
Gripe site: A website where a
person or entity complains about a trademark owner.
Initial interest confusion—degree of
likelihood that the allegedly infringing mark would attract potential
customers based on the reputation of the owner of the original mark
Internet Corporation
for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN): Is a nonprofit corporation which
maintains the master list of all domain names registered to insure that
there is no duplication. It is
headquartered in the US,
but governed by a board with representatives from around the world.
Internet
protocol (IP) ddress: Each computer is
assigned an IP address when it becomes part of the Internet, and is nothing
more than a unique string of numbers.
Internet: A global system by
which millions of computers are linked together. Through this linkage people can send
each other messages, exchange files, and access data.
Patent and
Trademark Office: The United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO or
USPTO) is an agency in the United States Department of Commerce that provides
patent and trademark protection to inventors and businesses for their
inventions and corporate and product identification.
Reverse domain
name hijacking: An entity that did not register the domain name first,
often a larger and more well-known entity, attempts to get hold of the
domain name, even though the domain name owner has a legitimate competing
claim for the mark and no dilution or infringement has occurred.
Service mark: Any word, name, symbol, device, or any combination, used, or intended to
be used, in commerce, to identify and distinguish the services of one
provider from the services provided by others, and to indicate the source
of the services.
Top level domains
(TLDs): All domain names are grouped into these
categories, which are the generic suffixes that come at the very end of a
domain name. For example: .com,
.gov, .org, and .edu. There are two types of TLDs: generic and country codes.
Trademark: Any word, name, symbol, or device, or any combination used, or intended to
be used, in commerce to identify and distinguish the goods of one
manufacturer or seller from goods manufactured or sold by others, and to
indicate the source of the goods. In short, it is a brand name.
Universal Resource
Locator (URL): Each file or other resource at a given domain will have a
specific designation known as a URL, which a user types into a Web
browser. A URL is the address
of a site or document on the internet, and is comprised of a second-level
and top-level domain.
World Intellectual
Property Organization (WIPO): Works with ICANN to achieve the goal of
unifying domain name practices around the world and minimizing conflict
with trademark law.
Sources:
- Ballentine’s Law
Dictionary, Lexis Law Publishing, (1969).
- Ginsburg, Jane C., Litman,
Jessica, & Kevlin, Mary L., Trademark and
Unfair Competition Law, (Foundation Press, 3rd ed.) (2001).
- Schechter, Roger E., Thomas, John R., Intellectual
Property: the Law of Copyrights, Patents, and Trademarks, West Group,
(2003).
- Title 17 of the United States Code, 15
USC § 108, (2003), available at http://www.copyright.gov/title17/.
- United States Patent and Trademark
Office, available at http://www.uspto.gov/main/faq/index.html.
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