IP: President Clinton Signs Anti-Cybersqatting Bill Into Law

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

> EDUCAUSE WASHINGTON UPDATE --- DECEMBER 3, 1999
>
>
> ***IN THIS ISSUE***
>
>
> PRESIDENT CLINTON SIGNS ANTI-CYBERSQUATTING BILL INTO LAW
>
> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE UNVEILS NEW INTERNET ADDRESS SITE
>
> ***
>
>  PRESIDENT CLINTON SIGNS ANTI-CYBERSQUATTING BILL INTO LAW
>
>
> President Clinton this week signed into law a bill to prevent the bad faith
> registration and reselling of Internet domain names. "The Anticybersquatting
> Consumer Protection Act" would allow trademark owners to seek statutory
> damages against defendants found to have registered the domain name with
> "bad faith intent to profit from that mark".
>
> While primarily associated with big-name private corporations,
> cybersquatting has also been a problem for the higher-education community.
> Some universities have had trouble with so-called lampoon Internet sites
> that seek to disparage the schools.  As part of the law's guidelines for
> determining whether cybersquatting took place, courts may consider the
> intent to tarnish or create confusion over the source of a trademark or
> Internet site. Other important provisions in the new law include:
>
> Domain name registrar/registry liability:
> Domain name registrars and registries are not liable for monetary damages in
> domain name disputes unless they 1) fail to provide a court with requested
> documents necessary to establish the court's authority in determining the
> registration and use of a domain name; 2) suspended or modified the domain
> name without an express order of the court; or 3) willfully did not comply
> with a court order.
>
> Study on abusive domain name registrations involving personal names:
> The new law directs the Commerce Department, in consultation with the Patent
> and Trademark Office and Federal Election Commission, to provide Congress
> within six months of enactment of the law guidelines for resolving disputes
> involving the domain name registration of personal names.
>
> Critics of the new law have voiced concerns that it grants trademark owners
> overly broad protections and undermines efforts by ICANN to create an
> international uniform domain name dispute resolution policy.
> [<http://www.icann.org/udrp/udrp.htm>]
>
>
>
>  DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE UNVEILS NEW INTERNET ADDRESS SITE
>
> The Department of Commerce announced yesterday the release of a new version
> of the InterNIC website. [<http://www.internic.net/>] The new site will
> provide the public with information regarding domain name registration and a
> directory of .com, .org, and .net domain name registrars currently
> accredited by the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers
> (ICANN).
>
> As part of an agreement reached on November 10, 1999
> [<http://www.icann.org/nsi/nsi-agreements.htm>], Network Solutions, Inc.
> will operate the InterNIC website on behalf of the Department of Commerce
> for the next six months, after which it will be transferred over to the
> Department of Commerce.
>
>
> ***
>
> Written from EDUCAUSE'S Washington office, "The EDUCAUSE Washington Update"
> is a free service of EDUCAUSE, an international nonprofit association
> dedicated to transforming higher education through information technologies.
>
>
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