In a case decided last week by the Australian trademark office, Apple, Inc objected to the trademark application filed by another company on the term, DOPi (iPod spelled backwards with emphasis on the “i”).
Apple argued that the application of the trademark should be rejected as an infringement on its trademark because the “particular coloring and orientation of the letter “i” in the 
mark, which as a whole, of course, is made up of the letters of the Opponent’s IPOD trade mark in reverse order, gave that letter particular prominence. The emphasis given to the letter “i” results in the consumer’s attention on seeing the mark being immediately deflected to that particular part of the mark. The eye thus having been drawn to that particular part of the mark will perceive the very different treatment given to the letter “i” and also its close association with the three waves device. The aforesaid depiction creates a perception of that combination being the dominant and distinctive feature of the mark.”
“”The manner of that depiction would immediately bring to the consumer’s mind the association of the mark “i” with the Opponent and its family of “i” products, especially the iPod musical player in light of the use of the soundwave device.”"
In rejecting Apple claim the Hearing Officer said:
“”A check of the register in fact indicates there are scores of parties with registrations for marks of this kind covering relevant goods and Apple cannot therefore claim a monopoly in them.
“”By way of example, iSoft, iSkin, IBOX, iPORT, iJOG, IWAKE, iDrive and iListen, all in separate ownership, are but a small selection of current third party registrations covering relevant class.
“”A check of Apple.com reveals many third party accessories for the Players are advertised, including accessories bearing the trade marks iSkin, iClear and iSee.
“Apple has not therefore demonstrated to my satisfaction that the person of ordinary intelligence and memory would be caused to wonder, or be left in doubt, about whether the Goods come from Apple merely because the Trade Mark terminates in the letter “i”, however that letter may be presented.
“”Nor do I think the fact that the Trade Mark is made up of the letters of the Apple’s IPOD trade mark in reverse order would cause a significant or substantial number of relevant consumers to wonder whether the Goods were those of the Apple.
“”However, given the obvious differences between the parties’ marks when considered as wholes, the fact that it is common for traders in relevant goods to feature the letter “i” in their trademarks and the lack of evidence of any instances of actual confusion, I am not satisfied use of the Trade Mark for any of the Goods would be likely to deceive, or cause confusion amongst, a significant number of consumers. “”
Big winners here is anyone holding an “i” domain.
In case your wondering DOPI.com its owned by Hitfarm.
Mediapost.com just published a story on one of the new companies in our space, Root Orange.
The story give you some back ground on how it got started and its location splitting technology and the roll out of attorney.com.
Basically as we discussed a couple of weeks ago the technology allows for many different, in the case of attorney.com, lawyers around the country to use and market the same domain name, and results will displayed only back to the attorney who bought the exclusive in that market.
Lawyers are use to doing this with 800 numbers and buying television ads in their local market which goes to a national number.
It will be interesting to see if other professions or businesses will buy into this method.
If so it will make for a huge opportunity to monetize domains away from PPC
You can read the full post here.
This Sunday the NY Daily News wrote a feature called Get Rich With A Click , focusing on several New York geo domainers including Leon Hardy, Larry Fischer and Kevin Cahill. The three featured own NewYork.com, Queens.com and StatenIsland.com respectively. The article is a nice positive piece on the geo domainers. Nice work guys.
(c) 2009 DomainNameNews.com
Advertisement
Upcoming Domain Industry Events, Conferences & Auctions
External Articles, Larry Fischer, Miscellaneous, kevin cahill, leon hardy
The Snapnames Monthly Showcase auction for March, closes tomorrow on Tuesday March 16th at 3:15pm EST according to Snapnames.com normally closing rules.
We went through the hundreds of domain in this auction and came up to what we think are the most interest domains in the auction:
| ScreenSavers.com | $250,001 – $500,000 | Huge price drop |
| ProFootball.com | $250,001 – $500,000 | great name/Football.com 8 figure domain |
| Now.biz | $501 – $1000 | nice for price |
| SoccerPlayers.com | $25,001 – $50,000 | world cup is coming |
| TelevisionSchedule.com | $5,001 – $10,000 | reasonable price |
| MovieTheatres.com | $50,001 – $100,000 | “the other spelling” |
| SportsScores.com | $50,001 – $100,000 | Scores sold for $1M & what most are searching for are sports scores |
| IndyCars.com | $2501 – $5000 | nice auto racing domain |
| F4.org | $2501 – $5000 | not bad if reserve is on lower range |
| Shut.com | $10,001 – $25,000 | 4 letter word interesting if at $10K |
| TheStartingLine.com | $5,001 – $10,000 | nice racing domain |
| BungeeJumper.com | $5,001 – $10,000 | big topic |
| 5CardStud.com | $5,001 – $10,000 | Bang on Poker domains usually sell |
| EgoBoost.com | $2501 – $5000 | Just like it |
| HalfCourtBasketball.com | No Reserve | Very popular |
| WinThePot.com | $5,001 – $10,000 | Another poker related domain |
| PlayTheHorses.com | $10,001 – $25,000 | Nice horse racing domain |
| TheFights.com | $501 – $1000 | boxing, UFC, lots of uses |
| GamePlaying.com | $5,001 – $10,000 | Video games, or a relationship site |
| FinalPlay.com | $501 – $1000 | Just like it |
| NevadaSportBooks.com | No Reserve | Another gambling related domain, this one for a directory |
Wired.com just published a story on the 25th Anniversary of the first domain registration, Symbolics.com.
The article highlights the history of the first domain registered including up to its recent acquisition by Aron Meystedt, of XF.com last August and well as some other important dates in domain name registration history
An interesting article you should check out.
Congrats to Aron
The Montenegro ccTld (.ME) has been making great strides ever since it’s launch back in 2008.
A lot of people are using the domain extension – from url shorteners like Facebook’s Read more »
The following 51 domain names are expired and available to register at the time of writing this. As usual, all names are linked to the Godaddy buy screen for quick Read more »
The domain name Gold.co.uk has been sold via Sedo for the amount of 42,050.00 GBP which roughly equates to $63,800 US.
According to the domain’s whois info, the domain is now Read more »
The following domain names are either listed for sale on SnapNames, are in auction or are about to drop and can be back-ordered with SnapNames. They are directly linked to Read more »