Russia legislatively encourages cybersquatting

Unfair business practices of market entities are manifested in various activities of organizations, including in the field of the Internet.

One of these new phenomena of commercial use of the network is cybersquatting, which is the registration of domain names that can be redeemed in the future by any companies for a lump sum.


Examples of the sale of domain names from foreign practice:

• Mercury.com - sold for 1 million. 100 thousand. USA.
• Altavista.com - sold for 3 million 250 thousand dollars. USA.
• Business.com - sold for 7 million 500 thousand US dollars.

Types of cybersquatting

Brand domaining is the registration of domain names containing trademarks, brand names, names of individuals, and names of copyright objects. Doctors, parasitizing on someone else's fame, try to sell such domain names to copyright holders or use captured domains to redirect to other sites with a uniform theme in order to “twist” their domain attendance statistics. Sometimes, in order to “stimulate” a legitimate claimant to speed up a domain redemption, a domain manager may set up a redirect from this domain to a web site of dubious content, causing damage to the reputation of the copyright holder.
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Typesquatting is the registration of domain names that are similar in spelling to domain names of popular Internet sites, but containing errors in the sequence of writing characters included in a domain name. Domaineer can either use the twin site to accumulate attendance statistics, or even set up a redirect to a genuine internet site that the internet user was originally interested in.

Subject domaining - registration as the domain name of the commonly used name of the type of goods or services, activities, etc. Domainers do not register domain names for their own needs in order to carry out relevant activities with their help, but again abuse the technical uniqueness of the domain name and the presence of a legitimate interest in owning a domain name with conscientious business entities.

Arbitrary domaining - registration as a domain name of a non-well-known abbreviation or a word that does not exist (not well-known) in terms of the future demand for these symbols.

Other - sectoral, geographical, nominal.

Legal regulation

One of the first legislative obstacles to cybersquatting was the adoption in 1999 of the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA). ACPA secured the main prohibition on the use of a trademark when registering a domain name: “any person is liable to the owner of the trademark when using the appropriate designation regardless of the goods or services of the trademark owner in the case of registration of a domain name that is identical or confusingly similar to the trademark or well-known trademark. " Full text ACPA

Russian law in relation to cybersquatting, and in particular the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, enshrines the rule, which, in its essence, establishes the legal possibility of capturing a domain name - cannot be registered as trademarks, identical to the domain name, the rights to which arose before the priority date registered trademark.

It turns out that the emergence of such a rule, apparently due to the fact that certain experts in the field of intellectual property rights still believe that the domain name is also subject to legal protection along with trademarks. That, you see, is very strange.

This position of the legislator is fully confirmed by judicial practice, which, when resolving such disputes, is guided not by the exclusive right of a person to a trademark, but by the ratio of the date of registration of the domain name and the date of priority of the trademark.

Arbitrage practice

Thus, the court considered the case where the plaintiff was the holder of the rights to the Avtovaz trademarks, which was registered on 11.11.1999, and Avtovaz.ru, registered on 05.11.2004. The defendant was the owner of the domain name dated 02.21.2000. It turned out quite confusing. The plaintiff made a claim to the domain owner and demanded to prohibit the use of the domain avtovaz.ru and claim compensation from the defendant in the amount of 1 million rubles.

During the proceedings it was revealed that the domain owner has the full right to use the domain, since It was registered before Avtovaz registered the Avtovaz trademark. But the court banned the use of the Avtovaz trademark on the website and ordered the defendant to pay compensation in the amount of 10,000 rubles and pay a state fee.

But in the case of a claim by the owner of the domain avtovaz.ru to our favorite manufacturer of domestic cars, the trademark would have been recognized as registered illegally and would be prohibited for use. It turns out that our legislation encourages the capture of domain names and if you decide to register a trademark - carefully study domain names similar to the name of your trademark.

The following materials were used in the article:

1. Article "The Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act: Key Information"
2. Yu. F. Vatskovsky. Domain disputes. Protection of trademarks and brand names. Statute, 2009.
3. Sudarikov S.A. Intellectual property law. M .: Prospectus, 2010.
4. Resolution of the Ninth Arbitration Court of Appeal of April 13, 2009 on case No. A40-42348 / 08-15-353
5. Resolution of the Presidium of the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation of December 8, 2009 No. 9833/09.

Were used data from the website of the company Lawmark