NIPC Law

Partial View of the Internet Author  The Opte Project Source  Wikipedia Creative Commons Licence Whenever you apply to register or to renew the registration of, a generic top-level domain name such as one ending in ".com", ".org" or ".biz" you represent and warrant to the registrar that: (a) the statements that you make in your agreement with the registrar are complete and accurate; (b) the registration of the domain name will not to your knowledge, infringe upon or otherwise violate the rights of any third party; (c) you are not registering the domain name for an unlawful purpose; and (d) you will not knowingly use the domain name in violation of any applicable laws or regulations. It is your responsibility and not the registrar's to determine whether your domain name registration infringes or violates someone else's rights. What Rights might be violated or infringed? These are usually registered trade ma...

Partial View of the Internet Author The Opte Project  Source Wikipedia   Creative Commons Licence I have been a member of the World Intellectual Property Organization's domain name dispute resolution panel  since 2003 and I have seen a fair number of complaints  in domain name disputes in that time. I have also settled a few of my own as counsel to trade mark proprietors or business owners who object to the registration of a domain name that is the same as, or similar to, their trade mark or business name. The complaint is an important document as it is usually the only source of evidence and argument that a panellist can rely upon It is rarely prepared well. More often and not I receive screeds of irrelevant matter, bad points, repetition of the same point and disjointed argument all presented in a tone of exaggerated indignation backed up by lengthy annexes all of which have to be read and most of which are next to useless. This short...

Topshop, Leeds Photo Wikipedia In  Fenty and Others v Arcadia Group Brands Ltd and another     [2013] EWHC 2310 (Ch), [2013] WLR(D) 310 Mr Justice Birss gave judgment to Robyn Rihanna Fenty (better known as Rihanna ) and her corporate licensing companies against Top Shop for selling a t-shirt that reproduced a photo of the singer. The claim was brought not for infringement of copyright since the owner of the copyright in the photograph had licensed the reproduction of his work but for passing off. Rihanna and her companies had claimed that the t-shirt misrepresented authorization or approval of the manufacture and distribution of the garments and that such misrepresentation damaged her commercial activities. I wrote about the case in Passing off - Fenty v Topshop   10 Sept 2013 and readers are referred  to that note for an appreciation of the judgment. A lot of people were surprised by Mr Justice Birss's decision including me t...