PDA

View Full Version : 毎日.jp - 1st IDN.jp in dispute


Ryu
12th November 2007, 06:24 AM
I reckon some of you are already aware of this, but Mainichi Shimbun (Mainichi Newspaper) apparently claimed their right over 毎日.jp (Mainichi.jp).

Mainichi Shimbun currently uses the roma-ji domain, mainichi.jp, and advertises their website as 毎日jp.

毎日 is a 100% generic word which simply means "every day".

Japan Intellectual Property Arbitration Center is due to make a judgement.

Source: http://www.onamae.com/news/world/071029.html

Olney
12th November 2007, 06:51 AM
I saw this on Mixi recently
& I believe it's GMO who owns it, it's tough to say who will win it.

jacksonm
12th November 2007, 07:42 AM
Very interesting. I think we should follow this case closely, as it has a potential impact on many of us how Japan will treat owners of generic domains.

When is it due for decision?

.

Ryu
12th November 2007, 08:06 AM
I believe it's GMO who owns it, .

why do you think so? all that's obvious from whois info is that the owner of the domain uses Humeia's services; and that he/she does not want to reveal his/her personal information.



When is it due for decision?

.

that's not mentioned in the news article. but it should take about 3 months. the process started on 3 Oct.

jacksonm
12th November 2007, 08:20 AM
Ryu, do you know of any domain lawyers in Japan who would defend us foreigner .jp owners in the event we get hit with this same type of claim?

Also, how much are the costs of going to arbitration for .jp domains? I couldn't find that on my own.

.

Olney
12th November 2007, 09:10 AM
I can't say which division it is but GMO is a huge corporation.
If the Privacy feature automatically slaps "Domain Kanri" on it, then it's not.
If it doesn't there's too many registrations for it not to be.
I'm in Tokyo & it's just obvious the biggest registries are grabbing domains themselves & have been doing it for a long time.
I don't find anything wrong with it personally & have actually gave individuals in GMO plenty of advice in person (about various domain related things).

There might be a few people associated from the various registries on the site.
I respect & understand the privacy issue...



why do you think so? all that's obvious from whois info is that the owner of the domain uses Humeia's services; and that he/she does not want to reveal his/her personal information.



that's not mentioned in the news article. but it should take about 3 months. the process started on 3 Oct.

Ryu
12th November 2007, 09:20 AM
Ryu, do you know of any domain lawyers in Japan who would defend us foreigner .jp owners in the event we get hit with this same type of claim?

Also, how much are the costs of going to arbitration for .jp domains? I couldn't find that on my own.

.

i don't know any japanese lawyer (or patent agent) specializing in domain issues. the thing is, there have not been many cases of domain disputes in japan with only ascii names around. so no one has that much experience in the field.

if i get sued, i would not ask help from lawyers. i would either give up the domain or fight with my limited legal experience. i don't believe hiring lawyers or patent agents would increase the chance of successfully defending their domains.

if foreigners get sued...... i don't know, mate. to be frank, foreigners owning .jp domains without proper base (address, etc) in japan would stand very little chance defending the domain. i would say... the best thing you can do is, simply give it to me :) .

the arbitration cost is JPY 189,000 with one panelist and JPY 378,000 with 3 panelists. detail info can be found here (http://www.ip-adr.gr.jp/jp_adr/jpdomain_6.html).

alpha
12th November 2007, 09:24 AM
...if foreigners get sued...... i don't now mate. to be frank, foreigners owning .jp domains without proper base (address, etc) would stand very little chance defending the domain...

so to all you non-native .jp holders with names at value domain and 21-domain... be very afraid :p

i've just moved all of mine to jp-domains - not worth the risk IMO

Ryu
12th November 2007, 09:41 AM
I can't say which division it is but GMO is a huge corporation.
If the Privacy feature automatically slaps "Domain Kanri" on it, then it's not.
If it doesn't there's too many registrations for it not to be.
I'm in Tokyo & it's just obvious the biggest registries are grabbing domains themselves & have been doing it for a long time.
I don't find anything wrong with it personally & have actually gave individuals in GMO plenty of advice in person (about various domain related things).

There might be a few people associated from the various registries on the site.
I respect & understand the privacy issue...

thank you Olney-san for your imput. i appreciate your explanation.

i still find it difficult to believe that this domain belongs to GMO, as the contact homepage that's linked from whois reads something like "if you want to contact our CUSTOMER, please fill in and submist this form. (the message will be directly forwarded to the domain owner and our company will not be involved.)"

if GMO is acting as a customer of Humeia to hide their registrations, that does not seem like a good thing to do. they should register with their own info, just like how they do with their renowned お名前.com.

well... that's my opinion but it does seem that you have a good reason to believe the domain belongs to GMO. i surely respect your point of view, though we may differ in our opinions.

cheers,
ryu

Olney
12th November 2007, 09:59 AM
GMO owns Humeia
it's all the GMO Group
Humeia
Onamae
MuuMuu Domains
Paperboy
All GMO

But you are also right, since it's in Dispute & it went public, they might not own it.

edear
12th November 2007, 11:16 AM
Ad:
每日.cn
每日.中国
PunyCode: xn--wgvo5k.cn
http://每日.cn/

Pm or Email:edear3000#yahoo.com.cn

jacksonm
12th November 2007, 11:37 AM
so to all you non-native .jp holders with names at value domain and 21-domain... be very afraid :p

i've just moved all of mine to jp-domains - not worth the risk IMO


Heh, good idea.

.

Ryu
23rd December 2007, 09:41 AM
Mainichi Newspaper won the case.
The owner of IDN was an unknown company named KK Tokyo Yusho "株式会社東京優勝".

The cruxes of the judgment were
(a) The domain was not developed.
(b) No specific reasons were identified for Tokyo Yusho to own the domain.
(c) Tokyo Yusho presented JPY 10 million as a minimum price for the domain name.

It appears that Mainichi Newspaper initially hid its identity and contacted Tokyo Yusho (who was also hiding its identity). Tokyo Yusho asked how much Mainichi would pay for the domain. Instead of giving the price, Mainichi asked Tokyo Yusho how much it wanted. Tokyo Yusho then presented the price of JPY 10 million as a minimum.

After that, Mainichi disclosed its identity and said it was ready to pay only JPY 100,000 plus reg frees. Tokyo Yusho claimed that (1) it had already received an offer of JPY 5 million from another party; (2) it had a plan to use the domain name to advertise the forthcoming project; and (3) the domain would not be transferred at a price below JPY 10 million.

http://www.nic.ad.jp/ja/drp/list/2007/JP2007-0004.html

Rubber Duck
23rd December 2007, 10:05 AM
Great publicity for IDN! :)

Ryu
23rd December 2007, 10:13 AM
Great publicity for IDN! :)

unfortunately, i don't think it made news anywhere. i got the info from database.

touchring
23rd December 2007, 10:16 AM
每日 translates to "daily" in japanese?

How about a dispute for a dot jp work? Do we need to hire a japanese lawyer? It's all in Japanese, how to respond??

Ryu
23rd December 2007, 10:18 AM
How about a dispute for a dot jp work? Do we need to hire a japanese lawyer? It's all in Japanese, how to respond??

hire me :)

jacksonm
23rd December 2007, 10:25 AM
hire me :)

Are you a lawyer?

.

Ryu
23rd December 2007, 10:34 AM
Edit

Rubber Duck
23rd December 2007, 10:38 AM
That might actually be a lot more useful!

Ryu
23rd December 2007, 10:53 AM
Edit

touchring
23rd December 2007, 11:49 AM
thanks. you can inquire me via PM if you get sued.


That's nice. :) But are there cases whereby the sued party wins?

seamo
23rd December 2007, 12:00 PM
How would the same situation play out with a Japanese national vs non-national?

Who'd win this argument....?

burnsinternet
23rd December 2007, 01:36 PM
What are the dangers here? The real dangers? Parked vs Developed? Or is it bad luck vs good luck?

jacksonm
23rd December 2007, 02:08 PM
What are the dangers here? The real dangers? Parked vs Developed? Or is it bad luck vs good luck?

I think in any of these arbitration cases:

Absolute worst: Parked
Bad: MFA
Not good: Undeveloped
Good: Developed


In my opinion, the panel will only view you as having legitimate interest in the domain if it is developed and not parked or MFA.

.

Rubber Duck
23rd December 2007, 02:18 PM
This was done in broad compliance with normal UDRP proceedings, but the owner was tripped up over the In Bad Faith Criteria.

For UDRP to be successful the plaintiff has to prove all three. Which from memory are simply:

1) Infringement of existing TM
2) No legitimate interest in domain
3) Registered in Bad Faith

I think a better lawyer would have got them clear, as the solicitation was only done after the negotiation was started, so effectively the bad faith was very much on the side of the plaintiff, in my opinion.

Parking domains is not in the US considered to constitute Bad Faith, and neither was that made an issue here.

When the traffic comes in, we will park. We will not solicit offers and we will not negotiate. We will have our Fuck You Money from Parking Revenues.

burnsinternet
23rd December 2007, 02:57 PM
Amen, Brother Duck!

I only list things for sale at Sedo. None of mine have a 'For Sale' sign anymore and traffic has been none the worse. In fact, I have seen a jump in CTR.

IDNCowboy
23rd December 2007, 03:58 PM
This was done in broad compliance with normal UDRP proceedings, but the owner was tripped up over the In Bad Faith Criteria.

For UDRP to be successful the plaintiff has to prove all three. Which from memory are simply:

1) Infringement of existing TM
2) No legitimate interest in domain
3) Registered in Bad Faith

I think a better lawyer would have got them clear, as the solicitation was only done after the negotiation was started, so effectively the bad faith was very much on the side of the plaintiff, in my opinion.

Parking domains is not in the US considered to constitute Bad Faith, and neither was that made an issue here.

When the traffic comes in, we will park. We will not solicit offers and we will not negotiate. We will have our Fuck You Money from Parking Revenues.
Sorry Santa but sorry to steal your christmas.... JPRS uses their own agency for udrp disputes

Rubber Duck
23rd December 2007, 04:00 PM
Sorry Santa but sorry to steal your christmas.... JPRS uses their own agency for udrp disputes

Yes, but in the round they are applying WIPO principles.

Anyway, it is very much your problem, whether they stick to established international guidelines or not. You are the one hold all the dot JP. Makes stuff all difference to me.

burnsinternet
23rd December 2007, 04:16 PM
You don't have any JPs, RD?

clipper
23rd December 2007, 04:30 PM
Thanks for the heads up on this. Very interesting.

Rubber Duck
23rd December 2007, 04:48 PM
You don't have any JPs, RD?

Yes, I have a few, but not enough to get excited about.

If they start confiscating them left right and centre, what I stand to lose is tiny compared with what I would stand to gain.

touchring
23rd December 2007, 06:06 PM
Interestingly, the bq code for the full name, "daily newspapers" had a wipo!

http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/decisions/html/2001/d2001-0307.html

this part is interesting:

(5) The purpose of a domain is to be used as a IP address for an Internet web site,but the complainant does not own and use any of mainichi.com/net/org, any of mainichishimbun.com/net/org, any of mainichishimbunsha.com/net/org, any of dailynews.com/net/org and any of dailynewspaper.com/net/org as its official domain website.

burnsinternet
23rd December 2007, 06:25 PM
That is spooky.

Rubber Duck
23rd December 2007, 07:35 PM
The Panel concludes (a) that the domain name [<毎日新聞.com> (BQ—3BV44ZPFMWYIAXQ.COM)] is identical to the trademarks owned by the Complainant, (b) that the Respondent has no rights or legitimate interest in the domain name and (c) that the Respondent has registered and used the domain name in bad faith. Therefore, the Panel orders that the domain name [<毎日新聞.com> (BQ—3BV44ZPFMWYIAXQ.COM)] be transferred to the Complainant.

For UDRP to be successful the plaintiff has to prove all three. Which from memory are simply:

1) Infringement of existing TM
2) No legitimate interest in domain
3) Registered in Bad Faith

zenmarketing
23rd December 2007, 07:38 PM
This is an absolutely horrible precedent.

Rubber Duck
23rd December 2007, 07:41 PM
This is an absolutely horrible precedent.

Yes, but UDRP is not based on precedent. It is not even a legal ruling in the normal sense of the word.

zenmarketing
23rd December 2007, 07:44 PM
However, UDRP panelists do reference previous UDRP decisions in some of the rulings I've read.

burnsinternet
23rd December 2007, 07:53 PM
I have far too many JPs to take this lightly. I don't think anyone is advertising the actual unicode.jp for any of my domains, so I should be OK.

websjapan
24th December 2007, 12:15 AM
The Panel concludes (a) that the domain name [<毎日新聞.com> (BQ—3BV44ZPFMWYIAXQ.COM)] is identical to the trademarks owned by the Complainant, (b) that the Respondent has no rights or legitimate interest in the domain name and (c) that the Respondent has registered and used the domain name in bad faith. Therefore, the Panel orders that the domain name [<毎日新聞.com> (BQ—3BV44ZPFMWYIAXQ.COM)] be transferred to the Complainant.

yeah it sucks, but the geezer did also register all the other famous japanese newspapers in japan so the panel concluded bad faith from this action, not necessarily the trademark which i thought the defendent used good reasoning to oppose the complaint (i.e. how generic is daily news throughout kanji writing countries.)

perhaps the lesson here is - private whois so they cant track what other TM you've been sneakily buying, or, get some content on quick.

sunsei21
24th December 2007, 12:23 AM
I have far too many JPs to take this lightly. I don't think anyone is advertising the actual unicode.jp for any of my domains, so I should be OK.

ditto here really makes me want to stick to .com to be safe :) i have a feeling we have about a snowballs chance in hell at winning if it came to it

thegenius1
24th December 2007, 01:10 AM
ditto here really makes me want to stick to .com to be safe :) i have a feeling we have about a snowballs chance in hell at winning if it came to it

If you have alot and loose a few no big deal. Like Ryu and others have said the Japanese aren't big on litigation. Also .com's have been approached and handed over in the past.

sunsei21
24th December 2007, 01:34 AM
If you have alot and loose a few no big deal. Like Ryu and others have said the Japanese aren't big on litigation. Also .com's have been approached and handed over in the past.

logic is good buy the beach and u wont miss a few grains of sand i am with that
i dont doubt .coms have been lost just think chances are better in .com well back to buying the beach

burnsinternet
24th December 2007, 01:36 AM
Hope that is correct. I am not holding Japanese TMs, but anyone claiming my JPs would scare me a bit. Generics are supposed to be generic.

touchring
24th December 2007, 02:17 AM
Hope that is correct. I am not holding Japanese TMs, but anyone claiming my JPs would scare me a bit. Generics are supposed to be generic.


Even for dot com, generics are not totally safe. The only criteria are these 3, generic or not doesn't matter:

For UDRP to be successful the plaintiff has to prove all three. Which from memory are simply:

1) Infringement of existing TM (includes generic).
2) No legitimate interest in domain
3) Registered in Bad Faith[/duck]

But for generic, if there's no bad faith, 3 cannot be proven and the complainant is denied.

Of cos, 3 can be proven if you park the name! Say supposing you registered apple.com, parked it, complainant does a screen capture and ipod ads appears, astalavista! ;)

Of cos, there are cases whereby pple hire lawyers to argue their way out, e.g. adam dicker's elephant.com, but these are unique cases whereby his lawyer prepared 3000 pages legal notes. The panel does not want to waste time reading, so the respondent wins. :p

For cctld, i suspect that 1 and 2 is sufficient.

Ryu
24th December 2007, 03:14 AM
Do you want to know how Japanese people will perceive foreign domainers?






http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4e/White-backed_vultures_eating_a_dead_wildebeest.JPG/800px-White-backed_vultures_eating_a_dead_wildebeest.JPG





Got the picture?:)




btw, the Mainichi dispute seems to be not over yet. it appears that Tokyo Yusho decided to bring it to a Japanese court.

burnsinternet
24th December 2007, 03:17 AM
Ryu, are you trying to get my JPs? :p

As we say in America, you can have my IDNs when you pry them from my cold, dead fingers....

IDNCowboy
24th December 2007, 03:31 AM
Not all of the top .com's in English are owned by westerners ;)

Aren't alot of the three number .com's owned by the Chinese or Japanese in their countries
Scavengers!

markits
24th December 2007, 03:38 AM
What I get here is that dot com is the king.
毎日.com, hihi..

Ryu
24th December 2007, 03:43 AM
Aren't alot of the three number .com's owned by the Chinese or Japanese in their countries


those are Hindu-Arabic numerals used all over the world. NOT ENGLISH!

touchring
24th December 2007, 03:46 AM
In the future, when idns prove to be valuable, you'll start to see people setting up companies, buying trademarks, and then go after generic names.

markits
24th December 2007, 03:56 AM
True. Just once again proves this.
The Asian cctlds need a bit more civilised management with less hostile altitude towards investors.

touchring
24th December 2007, 04:59 AM
a few days ago, i read a chinese news that someone registered the a company using the chinese version name of Google 谷歌 just days before Google launched that brand. That company is now suing Google for cybersquatting on its name!

News here, it's very funny. :p

http://web.jrj.com.cn/news/2007-12-13/000003049840.html
translation: http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fweb.jrj.com.cn%2Fnews%2F2007-12-13%2F000003049840.html&langpair=zh%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

burnsinternet
24th December 2007, 05:16 AM
So-o-o.... Is there a danger to idn.CN?

touchring
24th December 2007, 05:23 AM
So-o-o.... Is there a danger to idn.CN?


This is not a domain dispute. the chinese company wants google to change its chinese name.

Well, this isn't the first time google got ripped off in china. rumors are that they paid a million dolllars for google.cn and google.com.cn.

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200509/22/eng20050922_210189.html

But the good thing in china is that most things can be settled amicably using some money - the complainant is happy, and the judge who definitely gets a cut, is happy also. But if google wants to fight for its trademark, maybe the proceedings can take another 5 years. ;)

If Google, a top american company with all the lobbying, international news publicity behind, and unlimited legal monies can't take back its trademark legally....

jacksonm
24th December 2007, 08:34 AM
Do you want to know how Japanese people will perceive foreign domainers?



Nice, they will view us as playing an integral and important role in the ecosystem :) If the Japanese view foreign domainers as garbage collectors, then it means that they didn't want those domains anyway. That's great news for us garbage collectors.

.

Rubber Duck
24th December 2007, 09:00 AM
Even for dot com, generics are not totally safe. The only criteria are these 3, generic or not doesn't matter:



But for generic, if there's no bad faith, 3 cannot be proven and the complainant is denied.

Of cos, 3 can be proven if you park the name! Say supposing you registered apple.com, parked it, complainant does a screen capture and ipod ads appears, astalavista! ;)

Of cos, there are cases whereby pple hire lawyers to argue their way out, e.g. adam dicker's elephant.com, but these are unique cases whereby his lawyer prepared 3000 pages legal notes. The panel does not want to waste time reading, so the respondent wins. :p

For cctld, i suspect that 1 and 2 is sufficient.

I think it has to be a bit more than that. The reason an iPod would normally appear is that the scum bag with the generic would then deliberately infringe the TM by using Keyword that call it up. If Apple themselves pay for Apple as a keyword and then pull up the iPod then that is there problem, as it is also if there is confusion of what is a genericised domain name. Bad Faith means exactly what it says on the tin. You can always go over the heads of UDRP panel to the courts to get justice if you have a case and the resources.

The main difference between dot com and dot JP is jurisdiction.

So-o-o.... Is there a danger to idn.CN?

You bet your ass!