He doesn't have to have superior rights via a vis everyone else in the
world in this particular matter - he has to have superior rigths vis a vis
defendant. The thought that plaintiff has to have the best rights in the
world to a name is a fundamental misunderstanding of intellectual property
law, often repeated on this list.
Sun Oil owns a tm for SUN for oil. Sun Microsystems owns the tm SUN for
Microsystems. Joe WiseAss uses SUN for petroleum products. Sun Oil sues
Joe Wiseass for infringemnet of the "character string" SUN. Sun Oil does
not have rights "en grosse" to Sun, in that it could not prevent Sun
Microsystems' use of the "string" in certain usages (so it is not
meaningful to say that Sun Oil has superior rights to Sun Microsystems - it
has different rights), but it does have superior rights vis a vis Joe
Wiseass. Joe Wiseass does not have Sun Microsystems' defenses available to
him. Sun Oil prevails.
Mr. Hasse does not have the defenses of some good faith Willie Brown
available to him.
Willie Brown possibly has superior rights to williebrown.com,
williebrownjr.com and damayor.com vis a vis Andy Hasse because Mr. Hasse
appears to have obtained domain names likely to be associated with Willie
Brown, the mayor of San Francisco, possibly in a way calculated to harm
Mayor Brown (Mr Hasse's employment by Mayor Brown's rival is relevant to
this analysis). Possible theories include rights of publicity, common law
trademark, false advertising, interference with prospective advantage, and
unfair competition (first disclaimer - a California IP lawyer would know
better about these state claims. Second disclaimer - this discussion is
based solely on the single news article - the facts in the article may be
inaccurate and material facts may have been omitted).
I do not believe that Willie Brown has superior rights to williesucks.com
vis a vis Mr. Hasse.
At 03:01 PM 8/11/99 -0700, you wrote:
>On Wed, 11 Aug 1999, Martin B. Schwimmer wrote:
>
>> Did you read the article?
>
>Indeed I did.
>
>> If you were talking about brown.com (or even williebrown.com in another
>> context) I might agree with you except the article states that the names
>> taken were:
>>
>> "williebrown.com, williebrownjr.com, damayor.com, frankjordan.com,
>> jordanformayor.com -- and even williesucks.com -- are registered to Hasse
>> Inc., owned by one Andy Hasse"
>>
>> so this is how someone can cybersquat on a common name. The defenses of a
>> hypothetical innocent person are not available to this non-hypothetical
>> person who clearly targeted Mayor Brown (unless you can come up with
>> another Willie Brown Jr. who is known as damayor).
>
>Please explain to me why Willie Brown, the mayor has superior rights to
>the domain name "williebrown.com" or any of the other character strings
>above.
>
>I'd also love to hear your definition of "cybersquatter."
>
>
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>Patrick Greenwell
> "This is our time. It will not come again."
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