Nissan vs. Nissan (2008) | Hacker News Reader

Nissan vs. Nissan (2008)

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48 pointsdsr1221 comments

Fascinating case. The resolution [1]:

"The case continued to a final injunction which allowed Nissan Computer Corporation to maintain control of the domains Nissan.com and Nissan.net so long as it neither advertised nor mentioned/made disparaging comments about Nissan Motor. Nissan Motor then filed a series of appeals that ultimately resulted in the same judgment in favor of Nissan Computer Corporation."

So Mr. Nissan wins and NissanUSA would probably be best burying the information about this case due to the negative publicity (for their otherwise excellent brand) and the fact that Mr. Nissan is eloquent and persuasive about the rights to his own name.

Perhaps this is a lesson in how NOT to pursue a perceived cyber-squatter?

[1] http://www.yalelawtech.org/ip-in-the-digital-age/why-nissan-...

Read the entire article and timeline. That wasn't the final resolution - it was appealed and he won the right to do as he wishes with those sites/domains.

"I've seen people do worse things to you in corporate settings than i see them doing on the street. They take everything from you" - 50cent (from the "Champs" documentary)

Both sides would be fare better off if they came to out of court agreement and sell domain to Nissan Motors.
1. This is not usual cybersquating, a legitimate, but far less popular business.
2. Given Nissan Motors financials, paying few mln USD is a drop in the bucket: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan
3. On the other hand that would be a lot of money for Uzi Nissan.
4. Spending 10+ years in court is counter-productive and probably already cost several times more in opportunity gains. Both sides losses. Business equivalent of prison dilemma: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma
5. Low-cost meditation. Send each party copy of book: http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Yes-Negotiating-Agreement-With...
Book a weekend trip to some luxurious place, where each party can get comfortable and try to strike a deal.

1. Of course it wasn't cyber squatting. Cyber squatting is unlawful in the U.S. and would have lead to a different outcome.
2. Why wasn't there a settlement? I assume either Mr. Nissan didn't want to sell the domains at any price (unlikely but possible) or insisted Nissan pay eleventy bajillion dollars for them, leaving Nissan with court as their best option.

I first saw this back over ten years ago and didn't hear of it again until it popped up on here today. I thought it was an interesting case study in corporate overreach at the time and sort of glad to see Mr. Nissan has prevailed to some degree after all these years. Given his $MILLIONS in legal fees, I would assume he has some strong backers out there somewhere.

The guy has run multiple successful businesses, so maybe he paid for it himself. If only the US had a sane legal system (i.e. loser pays), then the poor could get justice too, rather than inevitably losing a battle of attrition.

I guess Nissan Motors better change their name now.

Interesting that its a Japanese company going after a US company for trademark infringements, its normally US companies going after small local companies.
There used to be a Duff micro brewery in Dunedin brewed by a Mr Duff, and opened in the late 80's before the Simpsons mainstream success (at least in NZ).
There are the breweries of the town of Budweiss in the Czech republic espeacially the beer now known as Budvar vs Budweisser. Even in NZ where they don't sell Budweisser beers brewed in the town of Budweiss are known as Budvar.

I've met Mr. Nissan and did some contract work for his site years ago. At the time, he was looking for ideas to turn Nissan.com into a destination website of some sort :)

I'd feel more sympathetic towards Mr. Nissan if the nissan.com website was actually being primarily used for a business instead of being plastered with ads.

Equal rights and protections for citizens, but only the ones I really agree with.

It used to be a computer company, this lawsuit really has forced them to put ads to make ends meet to keep fighting this. You can see the history of the website at WBM[1]
[1]https://web.archive.org/web/19961112111421/http://www.nissan...

Surely there could be something business-related that would bring in more money than just ads, though?
The most financially beneficial thing that comes to mind for me would be a front-page category of car electronics and other vehicle widgets for online ordering - rear-view camera kits, smartphone car finders, USB cigarette adapters, etc.

What makes you think he is able and willing to run a vehicle widgets shop? And if you're talking about just putting affiliate links or similar, those are just ads as well.

trademarks are granted per industry.. so although Nissan Computers doesn't infringe and gets to keep the name... if he changes his site to a car electronics site (as you suggest), that may allow Nissan Auto to take him back to court and take the name.
After all, that would be Nissan Computer Corp changing industries to benefit from Nissan Auto's trademark... and that change would have definitely occurred after Nissan Auto was in the market (meaning he has no right to "Nissan" in the auto industry).

Random, off topic, question @OP just to satisfy my curiosity - did you find this article following research after reading this comment? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10030906
My 'deja vu' sense went off having seen the same rather obscure thing referenced twice today, now I notice both that comment and this post were submitted around the same time- I wonder if it's one of those remarkable coincidences or if one led to the other? (I'm assuming if the latter that this post would have followed that comment since commenter seems to imply with 'favourite' that they've been aware of it for longer than 5 minutes)

Can't speak for dsr12, but I can confirm your assumption, I wrote that comment before seeing this present submission. Another possibility could be dsr12 read PG's essay and submitted this because he or she thought it was topical, without having read the comments on PG's essay.

Cheers!
A stupid aside but just had to know ;-)

According to Wikipedia:
In 1934, Aikawa separated the expanded automobile parts division of Tobata Casting and incorporated it as a new subsidiary, which he named Nissan Motor Co., Ltd.
This guy knew exactly what he was doing in 1994. There are tons of people with the last name McDonald and I'm sure a few of them thought about starting some rinky-dink shell company to get McDonalds.com. Heck, I remember when it was still available and thought about registering it but I'm just not that sleazy.

(Last update 2008)

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