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| DOMAIN NAMES |
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| The allocation and control of domain names has been the subject
of considerable controversy in Ireland and elsewhere. A domain name
is an internet address which enables the location of a particular
Internet site to be identified. |
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| The Management of Internet Domain Names |
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| The management of Internet domain names is controlled by The Internet
Corporation for Assigned Numbers and Names (ICANN). Irish Domain names
are assigned by IEDR Ltd. The complexity of the rules applied by the
IEDR has not made this the most popular part of the Irish Internet.
The rules can be downloaded from the IEDR website. Ultimate control
of the regulation of domain names rests with the Minister under section
31 of the Electronic Commerce Act 2000 who is given the power to regulate
and registration and use of the .ie domain name in the State. |
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| Disputes |
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| The assignment of domain names has given rise to considerable dispute.
There are thousands of companies and individuals who could legitimately
have registered the domain name sun.com, but the IT Company did so
first. The information given by a domain name is very limited so it
is impossible to tell without logging onto the site whether sun.com
is the Internet site of an IT company or a newspaper. The registration
of domain names has given rise to disputes which can be divided into
two categories: |
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| (a) Cybersquatting Disputes. |
| (b) Genuine Disputes: Where there are 2 or more legitimate claims
for the one domain name. |
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| Cybersquatting Disputes |
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| This is where an individual who has no real interest in a name
registers it in the hope of selling it on to a business, individual
or organisation that uses the name or one similar. In general the
Courts tend to transfer the name to the more entitled party, under
the law of passing off. The leading case on this point is BT-v- One in a
million,
(The Times, 29th July 1998). |
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| Genuine Disputes : Two or more legitimate
claimants |
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| Where there are two or more potential legitimate claimants to a
particular domain name the Courts will usually apply the ‘First
come, first served’ rule as occurred in Gateway 2000 v Gateway
Com. Inc & Alan Clegg [1997] U.S. Dost. LEXIS. 2144. In relation
to Irish disputes, the first come first served rule was endorsed in
Zockall v Telecom Eireann (High Court Unreported 28/11/1997) in relation
to alpha-numeric phone numbers. |
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| Resolution |
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| There are two basic options for somebody who wants to recover a
domain name, you can sue in the Irish courts or another countries
courts if they have jurisdiction. The Irish courts will usually have
jurisdiction where the defendant to an action is resident in Ireland,
as the facts in an action of this type tend to be straightforward
it should usually be possible to resolve matters at the interlocutory
stage. |
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| Alternatively the arbitration procedures can now be invoked. The
arbitration of internet domain names be resolved by a number of different
organisation, the most popular one being the mediation centre provided
by the World
Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). |
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| Relevant caselaw |
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| Local Ireland Ltd v. Local Ireland-Online Ltd. [2000] IEHC 67;
[2000] 4 IR 567 (2nd October, 2000) |
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| © Karen Murray &
Denis Kelleher 2003 |
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