BATTLING FRAUD
FIGHTING THE GOOD FIGHT AGAINST ONLINE BRAND FRAUD
Cyber attacks against your brand can be very damaging and costly to both your revenue and your reputation. Susan Prosser shows how you can resist, with the right tools.
In the World Intellectual Property Review 2012 Annual, we published an article, ‘Online T reats to Your Brand: Defence on the Front Line’. Pre- emptive and proactive eff orts to defend your online brand were discussed. No amount of eff ort is foolproof, however, and for most major brands it is a question of when, not if, you will have to respond to signifi cant and organised online fraud activity. In those cases, using available domain and Domain Name System (DNS) research tools, in combination with prevailing legal statutes, is the right response.
ACPA legal statute
T e US Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) is designed to allow for prosecution of
individuals or 34 that register and profi t from domain names entities
which are confusingly similar to a company’s trademark(s). In a number of Federal cases companies have successfully defended their trademarks against cybersquatters using the ACPA as the backbone of their arguments.
In the June 30, 2008 case of Verizon California, Inc v Navigation Catalyst Systems, the defendant lost under the ACPA as the court determined that
‘domain tasting’ is a bad faith intent
to profi t under the ACPA. It stated: “It is clear that their intent was to profi t from the poor typing abilities of consumers trying to reach the plaintiff ’s sites ... further, the sites associated with these names oſt en contained links to products directly competitive with the plaintiff ’s cellphone and Internet businesses, potentially diverting consumers ...”
Trademarks Brands and the Internet Volume 1, Issue 3
UDRP policy statute Organisations looking for a quicker,
easier
defensive strategy can avail themselves of the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) that the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) created to arbitrate domain name disputes in a cheap and effi cient manner. Note that the UDRP applies to most generic top-level domains (gTLDs) but does not apply to many country code top-level domain (ccTLD) extensions.
As the actor bringing the proceeding, it is
incumbent upon you to prove three things to the panel of UDRP representatives:
• That the domain name(s) in question is confusingly similar to a mark that you have rights in;
www.worldipreview.com
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