FC: VolvoCars.com tries to grab VoloCars.com museum website

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

---

From: "Steelhead" <bill () ries-knight net>
To: <declan () well com>
Subject: volocars.com vs volvocars.com
Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2003 14:51:28 -0700

Declan,
I was preparing to get some repair information on my car on a webiste I
subscribe to.  the site had a link that caugt my eye because of the names
involved and i read on.  What I found was a domain name dispute with VOLVO,
a division of  Ford Motor Company trying to secure a domain name registed in
1997 that is similar to the one used by VOLVO which was registered in 2000.

The domain in dispute is volocars.com and was apparently registered in 1997
for a 40 year old car museum on Volo rode in Volo, Ill, population 200.
Ford Motor Company  registered the domain volvocars.com in 2000.

There are two press reports handy, the one from volocars.com and the one on
the alldata.com website.

Both are linked below  with full text

Bill Ries-Knight
Stockton, ca
http://volocars.com/volovsvolvo.html
      PRESS RELEASE:

      VOLO AUTO MUSEUM ANNOUNCES THAT VOLVO OF NORTH AMERICA (GOLIATH) SUES
VOLO AUTO MUSEUM (DAVID) FOR INTERNET DOMAIN NAME INFRINGEMENT.

      The following press release is being issued by Volo Auto Museum:

      Volo, IL - April 28, 2003 - 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.
      ###

      back to top

Copyright © 2003 Volo Antique Auto Museum. All Rights Reserved.

http://www.interestalert.com/brand/siteia.shtml?Story=st/sn/06060000aaa01103
..prn&Sys=speedracer2&Type=News&Filter=Auto&Fid=AUTOMOBI
Volo Auto Museum Refuses to Surrender to Volvo
VOLO, Ill. - PRNewswire - June 6
VOLO, Ill., June 6 /PRNewswire/ -- The following was released today by Volo
Auto Museum:

Last week a Swedish newspaper reported that Volo Auto Museum's domain name
dispute had been resolved. The source for this news story was a Volvo
corporate executive.

The facts surrounding the domain name dispute are relatively simple. Volo
Auto Museum sits in the center of Volo, Illinois, a midwestern community
where approximately 200 citizens live and work. The auto museum has been at
the same location for over 40 years and has been owned and managed by the
same family for that entire period of time. The museum has a well-deserved
worldwide reputation for displaying and making available for purchase
hundreds of classic, antique and American produced muscle cars. The museum
proudly displays any number of Ford, General Motor and Chrysler vehicles,
most built between 1900 and 1975. In November 1997, the museum opted to
become part of the modern Internet universe, registering its domain name,
volocars.com, creating a web site with detailed photographs of hundreds of
displayed vehicles. The Volo Auto Museum website gets several million "hits"
per month.

A gaggle of Volvo lawyers decided that the auto museum was a perceived
financial threat to Volvo (now owned by the Ford Motor Corporation). To that
end, the Volvo lawyers elected to initiate a domain name dispute and filed a
complaint with an international tribunal known as the World Intellectual
Property Organization (WIPO). The Volvo complaint claimed that the tiny auto
museum, which incidentally is located on Old Volo Road in Volo, Illinois
(hence Volo Auto Museum), was doing business in "bad faith" -- because
Volvo's Internet domain name was "volvocars.com" (however Volvo registered
its domain name in 2000 -- years after the auto museum registered its name).

The museum elected to challenge Volvo and filed a WIPO response urging that
the Volvo claim be rejected for a variety of reasons that included the
inability of the Swedish corporation to disenfranchise an entire village
(Volo, Illinois). The public learned of the dispute and commenced sending
hundreds of emails, letters and faxes to Volvo, essentially suggesting that
Volvo's conduct was unacceptable.

Because of unfavorable worldwide PR, Volvo sent a corporate representative
to visit with the Grams family -- they have owned and operated the museum
for over 40 years -- urging a quiet dispute settlement. During the personal
visit and subsequent telephone calls, Volvo insisted that they wanted to
make a written settlement proposal -- which they did on June 2, 2003. The
SETTLEMENT OFFER recited that the museum would forfeit its domain name (by
transferring it to Volvo), but the museum could continue in business using
Volo Auto Museum so long as they did not expand their rural enterprise.
Finally, the Volvo settlement offer demanded that the Grams family [would]
be prohibited from making any public comment of statement regarding the
"settlement".

Greg Grams, director of Volo Auto Museum asks: "Can a foreign corporation
really dictate the manner in which a rural Illinois auto museum use the
Internet to display American vehicles? Why would the Grams family knuckle
under and simply give up the name that has been associated with their home
and museum for over 40 years? The better question is how can Volvo have the
'chutzpa' to demand, as a condition of settlement, that the museum simply
relinquish its identity? Perhaps a motivated reader can supply an answer!"

Volo Auto Museum

Copyright © 2003 PRNewswire




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