Author name: fairwindsp

By Steve Levy You know that an issue has grown to a substantial size when it makes it into The Wall Street Journal. For many years now, FairWinds has been helping clients navigate the dangers of online counterfeits and fraud and it seems we were well ahead of the curve. A June 10th WSJ article, quoting […]

By Steve Levy In all the years I’ve been filing UDRP complaints, there had only been a couple of cases where I’ve encountered evidence that was blatantly manufactured in an effort to show that a domain name owner had legitimate rights to the disputed domain name. In one case, a respondent submitted a modified corporate registration

By Steve Levy Do you really know the nuts and bolts of what goes into a successful UDRP case? Let’s start with the basics. There’s the Policy itself, the UDRP Rules, and then each dispute provider has its own Supplemental Rules. In order to win, the party filing the case (the “Complainant”) needs to prove the

By Steve Levy When brand owners talk about online intellectual property enforcement the first topic is usually domain names and the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). Another topic might be the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by which copycat website can be taken down. But less discussed are social media usernames despite being so ubiquitous

By Steve Levy In UDRP cases, a key threshold test for succeeding is the ability to prove you have the trademark rights. And recently there have been a few cases in which the complainants were unable to do so. These cases are instructive for brand owners who are considering domain name enforcement actions. It is

By Steve Levy Maybe you just started a new in-house job, or your company just made a new acquisition or merger. Maybe, in your due diligence, you noticed a domain name that uses an important company trademark and resolves to a sketchy looking website. Maybe you thought to yourself, “hmm, this domain is a bit

By Steve Levy Maybe you just started a new in-house job, or your company just made a new acquisition or merger. Maybe, in your due diligence, you noticed a domain name that uses an important company trademark and resolves to a sketchy looking website. Maybe you thought to yourself, “hmm, this domain is a bit

By Tom Wells and Gabe Bonifacio Introduction With the rapid advancement of technology and the increasing popularity of artificial intelligence (AI), the adoption of the .AI top-level domain (TLD) has gained momentum. The TLD was created for the small Caribbean Island of Anguilla but has attracted individuals and companies alike due to the artificial intelligence

By Steve Levy Let’s face it. Not all brands are created equal. Some are famous, some are super famous, and some have a very limited reputation, perhaps from being used by so many companies. Consider the APPLE brand which is known worldwide but only for a particular segment of business – technology products. If, say,

By Steve Levy It is a foundational concept that the UDRP was created to deal with abuse of trademarks through the registration and use of domain names, namely, “cybersquatting”. These are situations where a domain name takes unfair advantage of a brand owner’s reputation for illicit gain. Obvious cases are phishing, counterfeit products, monetized links