We do things differently in Texas.
District Judge Royal Furgeson has ordered (pdf) that World Intellectual Property Organization cases from as early as 2010 be overturned and ordered a number of domain names now owned by Apple and Public storage be transferred back to the typosquatter that previously owned them.
Yes, you read that correctly.
The case involves domain names that belonged to a company tied up in the courts when UDRP cases were filed against the obvious typos. The complainants in the cases won and four of the domains were transferred to their rightful owners:
publicstorge.com, pulicstorage.com, puplicstorage.com transferred to Public Storage
aplle.com transferred to Apple, Inc (it apparently has already been transferred back)
But the judge says the cases never should have gone forward because of the court challenges involving the respondent.
In other words, you can cybersquat all you want if you’re in legal limbo.
So now the judge wants domain name registrar Fabulous to undue the transfers. In other words, take a domain name that belongs to Apple away from Apple. He also wants them to halt the transfer of over a dozen other domains lost in UDRP that Fabulous never transferred like it was supposed to.
Oh, and Furgeson wants Fabulous, which is based in Australia, to tell the court within two days that it has complied with the order.
Furgeson also required ICANN to confirm that it has complied with the order, even though ICANN can do absolutely nothing at this point. Domain name transfers involve only a registrar and registry.
© DomainNameWire.com 2011.
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