Domain Names as Internet Properties Essay

What are your long term plans for your populace scream? Do you expect to convey the name and the goodwill associated with it to an interested buyer or bequeath it your heirs? maybe you intend to use the bailiwick name to secure a loan for a business enlargement or for your childs college tuition. You may be in for a surprise. The intellectual property club asserts that domain names, as source indicators, are akin to trade emphasises. However, trademark law cannot be effectively grafted on to domain names because of the discrepancies over geographical boundaries and context-sensitive use.In order for a trademark registration to issue, the mark must be used in interstate commerce to identify the source of a path of goods or services. Identical trademarks can co-exist so long as they are associated with non-competing casefuls of goods or services or are used in different geographic areas. Domain names are registered on a first-come, first-served basis. The first individual or c ompany to complete the registration template for an available name gets the mend right to be associated with it. For a reasonable fee, currently hovering at $10 a year, the registrant can mark off and propagate the name in a worldwide marketplace.The registrant receives the exclusive right to use that name for a website presence, global e-mail, and network file transfers. But every domain name must be unique, and it is this proficient requirement that makes domain names potentially valuable resources which are substantively different from trademarks. Compaq Computer Corp nonrecreational $3. 35 million in July 1998 for rights to ALTAVISTA. COM, purchased from a California start-up called Alta Vista Technology. The transaction included existing dealings of a half million visitors a day who were already expecting to find the Alta Vista search railway locomotive at that domain name.As the price bar for domain names rises, NSIs customers may urge on being subject to the vagaries of the registrars feudal regime. Simple and unencumbered ownership endows the registrant with a type of predictable, if limited, sovereignty. Through legislation and judicial acknowledgment, registrants who meet certain individual responsibilities should be allowed a perpetually renewable and assignable right to enjoy this new source of wealth. Many domain names have perplex the cornerstone of multimillion-dollar business plans. In the fall of 1999, VirtualVineyard of Palo Alto, California, acquired Wine.Com of Napa, primarily for its domain name. While the $3. 3M-plus acquisition included an direct business, the CEO of Wine. Com estimated that about 70 percent of his companys value was its name. The current controversies over domain names highlight the interplay of technology, law, economics and politics. Court opinions trail societys changes and conundrums resulting from technology of recent vintage. Yet, tight everyone agrees on one point domain names are caught in a legal thicke t. If domain names are property, then existing contracts such as NSIs harsh Service promise must be rewritten.Although the implications of the Umbro decision are yet to be fully assessed, and NSIs appeal frame to be heard, the magistrate recognized that each knotty domain name dispute before the court may be breaking new legal ground. References Unknown (1999). Mortgages for domain names. BBC Sci/Tech News. Retrieved November 26, 2006 from http//news. bbc. co. uk/2/hi/ knowledge/nature/533455. stm Oppedahl, C. (1997). Remedies in Domain Name Lawsuits How is a domain name like a cow? Patents. com. Retrieved November 26, 2006 from http//www. patents. com/pubs/jmls. htm