Richard writes:
“”A little over-reaching here, No?
Based on this precedent, seems to me that ICANN Registrar, NameBay.com might need to change their name…..
Court Rules for eBay in Case Against Perfumebay.com EBay blocked retailer Perfumebay.com from using a Web site address ending with “ebay” when an appeals court ruled it was trademark infringement. Perfumebay, a seller of designer perfumes over the Internet, can’t use the domain name Perfumebay.com because the presence of “ebay” in the address confuses consumers, the federal appeals court ruled in Pasadena.
Read more: http://www.siliconvalley.com/news/ci_7382918?nclick_check=1“”
***FS***As a domain name registrant.. I’ve always disliked EBay spamming me with automated cease and desist letters for any possible permutation of domains containing eBay regardless of the meaning of the name… names like citybythebay.net, chesapeakebayfishing.com.. It’s like they didn’t even look at the list.. And if they’re doing it to me, they’re surely doing it to others. I might have paid $10,000 to acquire chesapeakebayfishing.com for all they know.. So if they defrauded me out of my name by making bogus allegations in an electronic mail message, does that not constitute interstate wire-fraud? Would love any IP counsel to chime in.
The owners of Perfumebay.com need to appeal this ruling …. This judgement does not pass the test of “consumer confusion”. I.e: If someone types in perfumebay.com and arrives at a site selling perfume are they going to confuse this site with ebay? or when they typed in perfumebay did they expect to arrive at ebay? NO they would not be confused. Hence, no copyright/trademark infringement.
eBay’s c&d’s have often been mis-directed, but there was a bit more going on in the Perfume Bay case than meets the eye.
Long story short, the owner of Perfume Bay started out years ago selling perfume on eBay using a couple of different names.
She settled on “Perfume Bay” because she claimed, at trial, to have had this vision of a bay, filled with ships, bringing in perfume from all over the world.
As was pointed out, there certainly was no such imagery used in connection with the site, and her typography seemed to vary quite a bit over time.
Now, I ask you… You are naming your business. You can pick anything in the world to call it. Your business consists of selling perfume on eBay. So, out of anything in the universe you can call your business, you call it “Perfume Bay”, and this is all some sort of coincidence, in view of the fact that you are selling stuff on eBay all day long?
MMmm…… I’ll take the fat end of the odds on the proposition of that being a co-inky-dink.