In a one of the stupidest cases I have ever read, the District Court for the Eastern District Of New York just denied a suit bought by a self described domainer, who sued Donald Trump seeking a declaratory judgment that he was entitled to use 4 .com domain names that included the “trump” brand .
The case is was filed by the domain holder who lost a UDRP on the domain names trumpabudhabi.com, trumpbeijing.com, trumpindia.com and trumpmumbai.com back in March 2011.
Instead of going away, the domain holder filed a for a declaratory order that he was entitled to use the internet domain names because “his use of the Domain Names does not infringe on any of Defendant’s trademark rights or violate the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (“ACPA”), 15 U.S.C. § 1125(d).”
Here is some of the background from the court:
“Plaintiff is a self-described “domainer,” which he defines as somebody who “acquire[s] interesting and high value domain names and park[s] them initially with domain parking service providers and/or build[s] the website, if feasible, with interesting content which takes significant time to program, customize and debug the back-end codes.”
“Plaintiff explains that getting “high quality” domain names means “getting domain names that make sense, easy to remember, concise in spelling and convey a knowledge of quality of the internet in its name.”
“Besides the Domain Names, Plaintiff owns almost 200 other domain names, many of which contain names of well-known businesses, such as barclayscapitallehman.com, citigroupwachovia.com, goldmansachsgroup.com, hulufriend.com, milanvogue.com, silversurfergame.com and xbox360sdk.com.”
“In 2007, Defendant’s son, who is an Executive Vice President of the Trump Organization, announced plans to build TRUMP-branded hotels and condominiums in Mumbai. Subsequently, in September and November 2007, Plaintiff registered the Domain Names, trumpbeijing.com, trumpindia.com, trumpmumbai.com and trumpabudhabi.com.
Plaintiff states that the websites are not run for profit and host political and non-political commentary, satire and “shared complaints of the poor quality ultra-low budget reality TV show ‘The Apprentice.’”
The websites contain disclaimers that they are not affiliated with Defendant, such as: “The content and this website has [sic] NOT been approved by Donald Trump, or by the Trump Organization, or by the shows ‘The Apprentice’/’The Celebrity Apprentice.”
On October 27, 2010, an attorney representing the Trump Organization wrote a letter to Plaintiff asserting that his use of trumpmumbai.com and trumpindia.com violated Defendant’s common law and federal trademark rights, andsubjected Plaintiff to liability under the ACPA.
The letter threatened Plaintiff with litigation if he did not transfer the domain names to Defendant.…
