Google came out victorious in a cybersquatting case against the owner of googblog.com. Just who owned googblog.com? A 17-year-old boy named Herit Shah from Gujarat, India. Google filed the dispute through the World Intellectual Property Organization (“WIPO”), claiming that googblog.com is confusingly similar to Google’s trademarks.
Further, Google uses ‘GOOG’ as their NASDAQ financial stock ticker since 2004. Google claims trademark rights to the term ‘Google’ as far back as 1997.
Google’s domain name dispute lawyer got Shah to admit “I was in a bad faith that i can legally keep the domain googblog.com but when i kept myself in the place of google i understood i really did very unfair to google. since two weeks i have been trying to delete the domain googblog.com, but i am unable to because godaddy has put my domain on hold, on your consent godaddy may delete the domain or unhold it. I sincerely apologise to Google for infringement, misuse of their intellectual property (GOOGBLOG.COM).”
Pre-litigation negotiations between the Google and Shah failed. Google was only victorious when it was forced to file the Complaint through WIPO. That’s why it’s critical to discuss domain name disputes early with your domain name dispute attorney. See Google Inc. v. Herit Shah
Case No. D2009-0405.
