Cybersquatting

KraftHeinz.com Registered by Someone in South Korea

The biggest story in the world of business today will likely be the merger of Kraft Foods Group and H.J. Heinz, two of the largest food companies in the world. According to a CNBC article that was published this morning, the new company will be known as The Kraft Heinz Co. This company will become the third largest food company in North America, assuming the merger is completed.

The most logical domain name for this new company, KraftHeinz.com, was registered today by someone in South Korea. It does not appear that the domain registrant is related to the company, although I suppose it is possible. At the moment, KraftHeinz.com seems to resolve to the domain registrar’s default landing page for newly registered domain names (I don’t read Korean, so I cannot confirm this). It appears the registrant also bought HeinzKraft.com, and the domain name resolves to a similar looking landing page.

Update: Interestingly, Kraft-Heinz.com was registered today by brand protection company DNStination Inc.

I presume The Kraft Heinz Co. is going to

WIPO Infographic on 2014 UDRP Filings

I want to share a neat infographic that was published by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The infographic illustrates a few facts about the year in UDRP filings for 2014, including the companies that filed the most UDRPs, the countries that had the most UDRP filings, and the top 5 areas of commerce that had UDRP filings.

The areas of commerce and countries from which the most UDRPs were filed were not all that surprising to me. Perhaps, I might have expected a greater percentage of filings from financial firms, but I can see why retail was so high (counterfeiters for example). I was a bit surprised about the companies that filed the most UDRP complaints. The top 5 companies were:

  • Philip Morris
  • Banco Bradesco
  • Swarovski
  • Lego
  • Electrolux

One aspect of the UDRP filing report I would be most interested in learning about is

UDRP With 1,000+ Domain Names is a Milestone for WIPO

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The World Intellectual Property Organization reported that it received its 30,000th UDRP filing yesterday, and it is a fairly interesting UDRP given the sheer number of domain names that are a part of it. Apparently, Ebay was the company that filed this milestone UDRP, and the case involves well over 1,000 domain names (there were 1,153 domain names in total included in this filing).

The first ten domain names included in this UDRP filing offer a good look at the types of domain names that were the subject of the filing:

I Disagree With Boston Business Journal Cybersquatter Characterization

David Harris, Tech Editor at the Boston Business Journal, published an article about Boston-related domain names up for sale on Afternic. The article is brief, but I disagree with two areas:

Harris wrote of listings on Afternic that contain the “Boston” search term, “Many of these sites have been registered by cybersquatters.” In looking through the results, there are very few domain name listings that I would consider cybersquatting. I am not a lawyer or a legal expert, so I am not going to call out any domain names that could be considered cybersquatting examples, but in my opinion, there are very few obvious trademarks that come up in the results page for a “Boston” search.

I also disagree with how Harris describes

Zions Bancorporation Files UDRP on 10 gTLD Domain Names

I was reading through the new UDRP cases, and I saw that Zions Bancorporation filed a UDRP for ten new gTLD domain names. Zions Bancorporation is a holding company with several subsidiaries in the banking business. Related companies include Zions Bank, Amegy Bank of Texas, California Bank & Trust, National Bank of Arizona, Nevada State Bank, and several others.

The UDRP was filed at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and the cost of the filing was $2,000, not including legal fees. The domain names appear to be registered by the same London-based registrant, which is why the company was able to file a UDRP for all of these domain names at one time.

The domain names that are subject to this particular

Forbes Covers New gTLD Cybersquatting

I am not at all surprised, but apparently there have been a number of people who went out and hand registered trademark domain names in some of the new gTLD extensions. People and organizations who were opposed to the new domain name extensions cautioned brands about this happening, and Forbes has an article covering the problem.

The article, Cybersquatters Rush To Claim Brands In The New GTLD Territories, which was published today on Forbes, highlights a number of domain name registrations that it believes should be considered cybersquatting.

This type of thing happens every day,

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