Gilles Tran wrote:

> 46e79654$1@news.povray.org...
>> Would it make any difference if I ran a small company called 'Nokia 
>> Gizmos' or something that nobody had every heard of?  Do they have more 
>> right to it than be just because they are a bigger well-known 
>> multi-national company?
> 
> Good luck with that...
> http://www.ncchelp.org/The_Story/the_story.htm
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4348585.stm
> 
In stead of taking away a legitimate domain I think a court could rule 
that the index.html at the top of the domain should be a disambiguation 
page.

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On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 09:33:40 +0200, scott wrote:

> Say for instance I bought www.nokia.com long before Nokia realised they
> needed a website.  Do they have any right to force me to give-up that
> domain name, just because they are a huge multi-national company, or is
> it just tough luck and they have to pay me whatever it will take?
> 
> Would it make any difference if I ran a small company called 'Nokia
> Gizmos' or something that nobody had every heard of?  Do they have more
> right to it than be just because they are a bigger well-known
> multi-national company?

Depends on whether you have a basis for choosing the name other than 
cyber-squatting.

Jim

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On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 09:31:12 +0100, St. wrote:

>         You couldn't start a company with the word 'Nokia' in it, and if
>         you
> chose any variation of the word because of this, it still might be
> trouble for 'sounding' too close to their (trade)name.

Actually, that's not strictly true - you could if the market was 
different enough from Nokia's name, at least as I understand it.

Take "Novell" for example; the company name was picked by the wife of one 
of the founders, but she was aiming for "Nouvelle" (which I may have even 
spelled right there) but misspelled it.

Now consider:

http://www.novelldesignstudio.com/

Not sure which company came first, but the markets served are different 
enough that it doesn't matter to either of them, particularly.

At the same time, consider the case of one Mike Rowe (not the guy from 
Dirty Jobs) - he went into software development, and set up a website at 
mikerowesoft.com - Microsoft successfully shut that site down because the 
name would be confusing and they worked in the same market.

Jim

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>> Would it make any difference if I ran a small company called 'Nokia
>> Gizmos' or something that nobody had every heard of?  Do they have more
>> right to it than be just because they are a bigger well-known
>> multi-national company?
> 
> Depends on whether you have a basis for choosing the name other than 
> cyber-squatting.

If my surname was Nokia?

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On Wed, 12 Sep 2007 17:12:36 +0200, scott wrote:

>>> Would it make any difference if I ran a small company called 'Nokia
>>> Gizmos' or something that nobody had every heard of?  Do they have
>>> more right to it than be just because they are a bigger well-known
>>> multi-national company?
>> 
>> Depends on whether you have a basis for choosing the name other than
>> cyber-squatting.
> 
> If my surname was Nokia?

See example of Mike Rowe....But you *might* be able to get away with it, 
depending on how you used it.

Jim

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"Phil Cook" <phi### [at] nospamrocainfreeservecouk> wrote in message
news:op.tyjfwfzyc3xi7v@news.povray.org...
> And lo on Wed, 12 Sep 2007 08:33:40 +0100, scott <sco### [at] laptopcom> did
> spake, saying:
>
> > Say for instance I bought www.nokia.com long before Nokia realised they
> > needed a website.  Do they have any right to force me to give-up that
> > domain name, just because they are a huge multi-national company, or is
> > it just tough luck and they have to pay me whatever it will take?
> >
> > Would it make any difference if I ran a small company called 'Nokia
> > Gizmos' or something that nobody had every heard of?  Do they have more
> > right to it than be just because they are a bigger well-known
> > multi-national company?
>
> You're heading into trademark land. Remember Apple, the two  were
> operating in different spheres hence no problem.

Until Apple went into music, right? I thought that is when the Apple -vs-
Apple started.

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I think there was a story that some lone inventor genius guy came up with
the name for his company and registered its domain as such: etoys.com.

Then some venture capitalists came up with the idea of an amazon.com-like
internet retail for toys, and wanted etoys.com.  They sued the pants off
the poor bloke.  He relented.

Political lesson: the difference between actual free markets and today's
capitalism-ism.

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And lo on Wed, 12 Sep 2007 18:14:01 +0100, Ross <rli### [at] speakeasynet>  
did spake, saying:

> "Phil Cook" <phi### [at] nospamrocainfreeservecouk> wrote in message
> news:op.tyjfwfzyc3xi7v@news.povray.org...
>> And lo on Wed, 12 Sep 2007 08:33:40 +0100, scott <sco### [at] laptopcom> did
>> spake, saying:
>>
>> > Say for instance I bought www.nokia.com long before Nokia realised  
>> they
>> > needed a website.  Do they have any right to force me to give-up that
>> > domain name, just because they are a huge multi-national company, or  
>> is
>> > it just tough luck and they have to pay me whatever it will take?
>> >
>> > Would it make any difference if I ran a small company called 'Nokia
>> > Gizmos' or something that nobody had every heard of?  Do they have  
>> more
>> > right to it than be just because they are a bigger well-known
>> > multi-national company?
>>
>> You're heading into trademark land. Remember Apple, the two  were
>> operating in different spheres hence no problem.
>
> Until Apple went into music, right? I thought that is when the Apple -vs-
> Apple started.

Yep, the original agreement was that Apple (computers) had nothing to do  
with music and thus couldn't be confused with Apple (records), and lo iPod  
and iTunes were created which reignited the argument.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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> I just had a look at the Milka case, btw. While I still feel that she was in 
> her right, I see that she asked 25000 euros because Kraft "tattooed a cow in 
> mauve, thus slandering her name" and another 25000 because of the 
> "commercial usage of a degrading image that she was identified with" 
> (presumably the mauve cow named Milka). This was pretty stupid and I can 
> understand that a judge would find her arguments frivolous.

First time I read this.  If true, probably the idea of a stupid lawyer trying
to counter-attack Kraft in a last attempt, in front of incompetent judges.

BTW, I stopped buying anything named "milka", and mostly (hard, because they

anything produced by Kraft, since it happened.

Fabien.

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46eaaba0@news.povray.org...
> First time I read this.  If true, probably the idea of a stupid lawyer 
> trying
> to counter-attack Kraft in a last attempt, in front of incompetent judges.

Always go to the source (in French).
http://www.legalis.net/jurisprudence-decision.php3?id_article=1413
Even if this braindead idea was her lawyer's, I guess that a client can 
always refuse a defense strategy he/she doesn't approve of (IANAL of course, 
so I could be wrong).

In any case, this illustrates the kind of problems individuals run into when 
trying to fight this kind of thing. She possibly had a good case and she 
could have received help from competent IP lawyers but either she couldn't 
afford them or she didn't even know such lawyers existed.

G.

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