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Court Dismisses Majority of Vulcan Golf vs. Google Lawsuit |
By Rikki Kirzner
Contributing Writer
With the exception of the typosquatting and parking claims, all counts of the Vulcan Golf, LLC (vulcangolf.com) class action lawsuit against Google (Google.com), Oversee.Net, Sedo (Sedo.com), Dotster, (Revenuedirect.com), and Internet Reit (Ireit.com) were dismissed by Judge Blanche M. Manning on March 20.
The golf club manufacturer’s $1,000,000 putative class action lawsuit filed in June 2007 alleges trademark infringement violations under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) and Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). In other words, Vulcan Golf claimed its named defendants engaged in a “massive scheme to use deceptive domain names on the internet to generate billions of advertising dollars at their expense.”
Judge Manning dismissed all RICO counts as well as the civil conspiracy and unjust enrichment counts, the violation of Consumer Fraud Act, the trademark infringement claim, and the Google/Oversee/ Blitz Realty trademark dilution claim.
However Judge Manning also ruled that those sections of the lawsuit containing Vulcan Golf’s alleged claims of damages due to unlawful parking and cybersquatting practices will be allowed to move forward. According to its First Amended Complaint, Vulcan Golf alleges that the named defendants have “engaged in a massive scheme to use deceptive domain names on the internet to generate billions of advertising dollars at the expense of the plaintiffs.” It also alleges that some of the “defendants register, license and/or park domain names that are the same as, or substantially and confusingly similar to, the plaintiffs’ distinctive trade names or marks.”
Vulcan Golf claims damages from the practice whereby an internet user types a domain name into Google’s browser and either intentionally or accidentally misspells the domain name and is misdirected to a confusingly similar website. In its lawsuit Vulcan Golf cited the example that Dotster registered and/or controls the domain name wwwVulcanGolf.com which is almost identical to Vulcan Golf’s own domain name www.VulcanGolf.com. Vulcan Golf also names Ireit, Oversee, Sedo, and “unnamed conspirators” as companies that knowingly “aggregate numerous domain names from individual domain registrants and contracts with Google’s advertising service to license and monetize those domain names.”
The sections of the lawsuit that were not dismissed by Judge Manning involve Vulcan Golf’s accusations that the defendants allow users to “intentionally taste, register, and otherwise assist domain registrants in procuring “deceptive domains” for the express purpose of monetization with Google advertisements.” The defendants failed to sufficiently argue that they do not in fact “enter into license agreements with the domain registrants for the license and rights to control, monitor, maintain, use and place advertising on” deceptive domains”. Furthermore Judge Manning found that Vulcan Golf was able to sufficiently plead a claim alleging that the defendants “intentionally induced a third party to infringe their mark.”
These dismissals put an end (for now) to most of Vulcan Golf’s accusations. Vulcan Golf has 21 days to replead its objections to the dismissals. Meanwhile, the remaining aspects of the lawsuit will proceed in the coming months.
To read a copy of the courts memorandum and order, visit http://www.scribd.com/doc/2366980/Vulcan-Golf-order-in-motion-to-dismiss |
