Verizon wants the world to know that the largest cybersquatting judgment, ever has been upheld by a
federal court in the Northern District of California. The court denied
the motion of the defendant -- OnlineNIC, an Internet domain
registration company in San Francisco -- to set aside a December 2008
judgment in which Verizon was awarded $33.15 million.
The case is based on OnlineNIC's attempts to take
advantage of Verizon and Verizon customers by using Internet names that
are easily confused with legitimate Verizon names.
This is the most recent decision in the case against
OnlineNIC, which had unlawfully registered at least 663 domain names
that were either identical to or confusingly similar to Verizon
trademarks. The court had previously found that OnlineNIC's bad faith
registrations of Verizon-related domain names were designed to attract
Web users who were seeking to access Verizon's legitimate Web sites,
and calculated an award based on $50,000 per domain name.
In its most recent decision, on Tuesday (Aug. 25), the
court concluded that OnlineNIC is "a serial cybersquatter," that, in
"blatant and willful violation" of the Anticybersquatting Consumer
Protection Act, registered Verizon domain names to "prey on consumer
confusion." As the court found, "OnlineNIC's intent was to divert
consumers searching for Verizon's Web sites." In addition to upholding
the original decision, the court also ordered OnlineNIC to pay Verizon
its attorneys' fees and costs.
"We hope the court's decision goes a long way toward
protecting consumers from becoming targets of Internet abuses and
frauds," said Sarah Deutsch, Verizon vice president and associate
general counsel. "Verizon is determined to protect our brand and
consumers from cybersquatters whose businesses are based on misleading
consumers."
Verizon Has Won a String of Similar Cases
In earlier cybersquatting cases, courts granted contested
preliminary injunctions against four different violators. Verizon
continues to increase its enforcement activities in trademark cases as
part of its broader effort to protect its brand and put its
intellectual property innovations to work.
In 2008, Verizon's intellectual property legal group was named one of the five best in the world by the International Law Office, with the support of the Association of Corporate Counsel.