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Comment by bmcahren | Hacker News Reader

I was discussing trademarks and domains with somebody today and tried to show them my favorite long-standing trademark dispute nissan.com but it appears all of the website content has been taken down in May 2022.

Here's one of the last standing copies: https://web.archive.org/web/20220406221134/https://nissan.co...

Oh, and digest.com where he told is lawsuit story is now for sale (http://digest.com/)

https://web.archive.org/web/20220402233023/https://digest.co...

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The UDRP ("Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy" - the arbitration process all domain name disputes go through - you have little choice as mandated by ICANN for all domain name registrars) has been hopelessly broken in favor of the pursuer for a long time. It's a pursuer pays system; surprise surprise pursuers almost always win. UDRP panels are run by private firms of typically retired judges looking to cash in for easy work, selected by WIPO ("World Intellectual Property Organisation") . WIPO love the UDRP, because for the first time its given them real teeth to enforce something directly. Similarly, if you don't respond to a UDRP notification the case is almost always decided against you and you lose control of the domain, regardless of the merits of the case.

If you want to look up some really terrible UDRP decisions regarding things that can't typically be trademarked under almost all legal systems (place and family names etc), the barcelona.com case is pretty famous. Same too with mcdonalds.com. Nissan.com is just another example sadly.

There have even been UDRP cases where the panel has claimed using WHOIS anonymization was an "act of bad faith" and handed the domain to the pursuer. It's a wild system.

> https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/help/dndr/udrp-en

> https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/policy-2012-02-25-en

>Nissan.com is just another example sadly.

Example of what? The car company never won a UDRP case against Mr Nissan.

Example of litigating over something that can't typically be trademarked - "Nissan" is a family name. There are plenty of articles online discussing the nissan.com case from the UDRP perspective, which is the typical remedy, and one Nissan can still pursue - you can't escape the UDRP due to the ICANN mandate.

Ford, Chrysler, Bloomberg - I'm not sure what you mean by "can't typically be trademarked".

If Nissan Motors believed they could win via UDRP, why haven't they?

Mr Nissan's hand is rather strengthened when he can show the UDRP panel he won a similar case in a US court of law, which might take the wind out the sails on the Nissan Motors side. For what its worth, the WIPO databases show plenty of other UDRP claims from Nissan Motors.

> I'm not sure what you mean by "can't typically be trademarked".

I mean exactly that - under most trademark law systems, you cant typically trademark a family name. I say typically because like everything there are exceptions.

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