If you have a domain name (ex: cityofsanjose.com), can the city of San Jose sue you?

:cool:

unlikely

I own the domain bethelak.com and the city of bethel hasnt come-a knocking :)

The company i bought it from actually sells these city domains (his got like 8k domains)

Can they? Yes.
Would they win? Who knows (a lawyer might be the right person to ask;).

It is more likely that they would use the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (URDP) to get you into arbitration in hopes of taking the domain from you. WIPO, one of the larger arbitrers that is allowed to handle URDP disputes awarded barcelona.com to the city of Barcelona a little while back. A lot of people thought that the decision was terrible, but it is binding. They have a list of their past decisions available here:
http://arbiter.wipo.int/domains/decisions/index-gtld.html

You might want to do some google searches on terms like URDP and WIPO to learn more about how entities can try to get a domain that is already registered by another party.

-Joe

This sounds interesting. How about if a city finds out that there is a domain using its name and the content is objectionable
(say a porn site!)?

Will a case against the site owner prosper? And will the city concerned be able to claim the domain? How much will the cost be for the city? Will it pay only for an amount equal to the registration of the domain? Any precedence so far?

I am interested to have a legal interpretation of this.

Thanks

:)

Originally posted by joe52
WIPO, one of the larger arbitrers that is allowed to handle URDP disputes awarded barcelona.com to the city of Barcelona a little while back. A lot of people thought that the decision was terrible, but it is binding. Key in that decision was the fact that the complainant, the City Government of Barcelona, had registered the term "Barcelona" as a trademark, and has a long history of registering trademarks including the term for a wide range of activities.

Existence of an established trademark or service mark is an important element in domain ownership disputes under the UDRP (http://www.icann.org/udrp/udrp-policy-24oct99.htm). It would appear that if, in the example here, the City of San Jose has registered that term, they'd have an easy win if they chose to claim ownership of such a domain. If they haven't, the case might not be so clear.

On the other hand, this sentence from the Barcelona decision:

In addition, Complainant in the performance of official duties has a permanent recourse to the use of expression "BARCELONA" alone or in combination with other expressions, which will appear only natural and normal from the point of view of the public.

might be applied to any similar case regardless of formal registration of a trademark, since existence such registration isn't required under the Dispute Policy.

I guess if it came down to it, my money would be on the city winning.

Anyone can sue you. Welcome to America. :rolleyes:

Originally posted by Planet Z
Anyone can sue you. Welcome to America. :rolleyes:


Your answer is like not answering.

You just wasted your post.

:cool:

Originally posted by Asia

Your answer is like not answering.

You just wasted your post.


Sure it did. You asked if it can sue you, I answered. It's all good. :D

Originally posted by JayC
Key in that decision was the fact that the complainant, the City Government of Barcelona, had registered the term "Barcelona" as a trademark, and has a long history of registering trademarks including the term for a wide range of activities.

Existence of an established trademark or service mark is an important element in domain ownership disputes under the UDRP (http://www.icann.org/udrp/udrp-policy-24oct99.htm). It would appear that if, in the example here, the City of San Jose has registered that term, they'd have an easy win if they chose to claim ownership of such a domain. If they haven't, the case might not be so clear.

On the other hand, this sentence from the Barcelona decision:

In addition, Complainant in the performance of official duties has a permanent recourse to the use of expression "BARCELONA" alone or in combination with other expressions, which will appear only natural and normal from the point of view of the public.

might be applied to any similar case regardless of formal registration of a trademark, since existence such registration isn't required under the Dispute Policy.

I guess if it came down to it, my money would be on the city winning.

Interesting thread, but I find it very hard to believe that a city in the USA would have half a chance unless they have the registered trademark. Currently the NJ.com and Newjersey.com are owned and managed by independant companies not the government. but I would not be surprise to see "big apple" as a registered trademark of New York

I think the Barcelona decision lays a nice foundation.

-Sqposter / Michael

Originally posted by sqposter

Interesting thread, but I find it very hard to believe that a city in the USA would have half a chance unless they have the registered trademark. We're talking, in the Barcelona case, about a domain name dispute under the UDRP, so it would make no difference which country either the complainant or the respondant were in. So a US city would have the same burden that the City of Barcelona had.

The original question asked if the city could sue, so of course in a court case the location would be important. Trademark precedant, though, is that actual registration isn't necessary to protect a trademark -- it's simply a tool to be used in establishing "first use." And, it's usually considered necessary in pursuing financial damages.

And of course whether any particular city or government has chosen to dispute a domain name isn't relevant to whether or not they could do so successfully. But again, it appears to have been relevant in the Barcelona case that the city government had registered a trademark and had established a pattern of doing so.

Originally posted by Asia
If you have a domain name (ex: cityofsanjose.com), can the city of San Jose sue you?

:cool:

My thought was, anyone can sue others as long as they "think" they have the rights to do so. In this case, they have the rights, according to common sense. But it's another question whether they'll *want* to sue over this matter? And what are their chances of winning if they do so?

IMHO I don't think they will do that. It's unlikely they will waste time to arrange for any legal actions, as long as the domain name doesn't provoke any sensitive issues. (e.g. cityofsanjose_xxxx.com)

And, if they really take the legal actions, how about sanjosecity.com, citysanjose.com, san_jose.com, ... will they wanna sue each one by one, too?
Just did a search and there are 2,310 matches for "sanjose"

Also, what if, there's another city in africa also coincidentally named san jose, who has the right of this name to sue? We're talking about top level domain not any ccTLD.

Just my thought.

I don't think they can sue you.
It is a dot com domain. That is used for commercial sites..
You can do anything with it..

Have a great day :)

regards
amar

P.S. As mentioned before.... mine is just a thought. Anyone can sue anyone in the US .... I guess....