Federal Court Holds In Favor Of Godaddy In Suit For Cybersquatting & Contributory Cybersquatting
 

Federal Court Holds In Favor Of Godaddy In Suit For Cybersquatting & Contributory Cybersquatting
http://www.thedomains.com/2012/01/07...ybersquatting/
A Federal Court has held that Godaddy.com was not liable to a trademark holder although the domain was being ?forwarded? by Godaddy to the registrants hosting company.

The case is of Berhad v. GoDaddy, and the decision was handed down by the Northern District of California on Jan. 3, 2012.

We will let the court describe the facts of the case and its findings.

Having read through the 20 page opinion I would say the court came to the right conclusion and the Plaintiff simply went well in the wrong direction suing the domain name registrar rather than registrant in federal court. We also have to applaud Godaddy for defending this case, which you can tell from the opinion was not cheap, rather than caving in to the demand of the Plaintiff.

Here is the court statement of the Facts:

?This is a case brought under the Lanham Act, alleging cybersquatting and contributory cybersquatting, and also alleging state law claims of unfair competition. Plaintiff Petroliam Nasional Behad (?Petronas?) is the national oil company of Malaysia, and is wholly-owned by the Government of Malaysia. (Its official website is www.petronas.com.my).?

?Petronas asserts that two domain names, www.petronastower.net and www.petronastowers.net (the ?Disputed Domains?), which were registered by Go Daddy, were used by one or more non-parties to violate its trademark rights by cybersquatting.?

?Petronas seeks to hold Go Daddy liable for cybersquatting and for contributory cybersquatting, on the basis that the non-party registrant used Go Daddy?s automated systems to point the domain names to a pornographic website that was hosted elsewhere.?

We had a case that was not too dissimilar in the UK a while ago, I think the company suing the domain name registration company won.

So here is a case where Godaddy actually protected one of its customers and didn't just take the domain name away from them based on the whims of the trademark holder (claimant).

Of course, this thread is likely to be very short because it is not negative against Godaddy.

Kudos to Go Daddy for refusing to act as Judge and Jury or law enforcement and forcing the claimant to allow the courts to decide the matter.