Volvo takes the Volo Auto Museum to WIPO for domain name infringement

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Maybe Volvo should get some sense. Anyone for a Audi!!!!!.. Djf


------ Forwarded Message
From: Scott Alexander <salex () sysd com>
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2003 17:49:30 -0400
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Volvo takes the Volo Auto Museum to WIPO for domain name
infringement

Yet more domain name silliness, but I thought this was a nicely worded
press release in response:

Volo Auto Museum Announces That Volvo of North America (Goliath) Sues
Volo Auto Museum (David) for Internet Domain Name Infringement
Thursday April 24, 4:41 pm ET

VOLO, Ill., April 24 /PRNewswire/ -- The following press release is
being issued by Volo Auto Museum:

Volo, Illinois is a rural community approximately 50 miles northwest of
Chicago. Volo's mayor is a local pig farmer and the 200 or so folks
living in Volo are a close-knit group of citizens who enjoy rural life
in America.

A commercial oasis in this quiet community is Volo Auto Museum, opened
by the Grams family some 40 years ago. Over the last two-score years
Volo has grown in the antique and classic auto museum industry, to the
point where the museum attracts both national and international
visitors.

Out of NOWHERE, Volvo of North America (now owned by Ford Motor
Company), has brought a complaint against Volo Auto Museum before the
World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), headquartered in
Geneva, Switzerland, asserting that Volvo is somehow losing potential
customers because in the cyberspace universe there may be either a
realistic or fanciful confusion between potential Volvo vehicle
purchasers, and those individuals who might be interested in antique,
classic or muscle cars which Volo Museum has been displaying and selling
for the last 40-years (long before imported Volvo vehicles were
introduced into the profitable American marketplace).

For starters, it is unlikely that the individuals responsible for WIPO
have so much as a clue regarding the difference between a classic or
antique or muscle vehicle and the very fine imported Volvo products. Can
you imagine anyone interested in viewing on the Internet or purchasing a
1972 Mustang Mach I, being confused and therefore not purchasing a 2003
Volvo 4-door sedan? Or is Volvo contending that the museum is somehow
profiting or being deceitful by displaying a beautifully restored 1958
Thunderbird and, therefore, a potential Volvo customer might be misled
into thinking that the restored 1958 Thunderbird is a late model Volvo?

Perhaps the attorneys that filed the Volvo WIPO complaint never bothered
to tell Ford Company executives what they were doing or what they had in
mind. Or perhaps the attorneys, in their zeal to garner mammoth lawyer
fees, are generating nonsensical WIPO complaints with a view toward
trying to stamp out a small local enterprise that was displaying and
selling classic and antique American produced cars long before Volvo
opted to enter the profitable United States marketplace.


------ End of Forwarded Message

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