Claimants owned a large number of UK trade marks and sought an injunction to block (or at least impede) access to certain web sites advertising and selling counterfeit goods against the 5 main retail ISPs in the UK. Further details and case document

About the co.no domain: The category "co" is used as an official category domain within several other top-level domains, e.g. co.uk. This is not the case in Norway.Sør-Trøndelag District Court resolved the lawsuit between Elineweb and Norid in a judgement made on 28 June 2012. The judgement finds in favour of Norid on several principal issues regarding the domain name policy and our right to add co.no to the list of domain names that cannot be registered or transferred. Click for case

SWITCH Registrar can base its activities on the commercial freedom of action. SWITCH with a public mandate for being registry and registrar can base itself on the commercial freedom of action regarding his registrar activities in the public mandate and its private activities as a registrar (switchplus ag). SWITCH is only bound to the fundamental rights like transparence and equal treatment (of the competitor) regarding it's registry services towards the registrars and as a registrar with a public mandate towards the end consumer.
Click for case

Click for case

The appellant is a Belgian professional association whose corporate aim is to fight piracy and counterfeiting in the name and on behalf of its members (parties with interests in the entertainment sector: film, music, and computer games) on Belgian territory. The respondents are two Internet providers that provide their subscribers with access to websites, including the websites of “The Pirate Bay”. This latter website was founded in 2004 and helps Internet users to download film and music files. Click for case

The Ontario Court of Appeal held, for the first time, that domain names can be considered "intangible personal property," and the registrant of a domain name located in Ontario may successfully bring a proceeding in an Ontario court. In particular, the Court held that service of a Statement of Claim outside of Ontario by the owner of a domain name registrant based in Toronto was valid in accordance with Rule 17.02(a) of the Ontario Rules of Civil Procedure. This case is of particular importance as it will facilitate the ability of a domain name registrant with a place of business in Ontario to have a domain name dispute heard by an Ontario court. However, this potential procedural advantage is contingent on the ability to establish a sufficient connection between the registrant and Ontario. Click for case

This decision is focused on the way the Parliament set the legal framework for domain name policies. The Court considers that, while Intellectual Property is taken into account, Freedom of Communication and Freedom of Trade are not. The decision’s motives do not challenge the appointment of AFNIC as the registry for the .fr country-code Top Level Domain (ccTLD). Consequently, the current policies of the .fr ccTLD will remain unchanged until a new legal framework is adopted. Click for case

AFNIC was informed of the Constitutional Court’s decision that considered unconstitutional article L.45 of the French Electronic Communications Act, which is the legal framework of domain name management in France.AFNIC highlights that the Constitutional Court differs the effects of its decision until July 1st 2011. AFNIC is pleased to remark that the Consitutional Court took the trouble to underline that past decisions as well as decisions to be taken until July 1st 2011 cannot be challenged on the basis of its decision.Finally, AFNIC notes that this decision is focused on the way the Parliament set the legal framework for domain name policies. The Court considers that, while Intellectual Property is taken into account, Freedom of Communication and Freedom of Trade are not. The decision’s motives do not challenge the appointment of AFNIC as the registry for the .fr country-code Top Level Domain (ccTLD). Consequently, the current policies of the .fr ccTLD will remain unchanged until a new legal framework is adopted. Click for case

The issue in this case is whether domain names can be made subject to seizure (and later confiscation) pursuant to the Norwegian Criminal Procedure Act and the General Civil Penal Code. The domain names in the case had been used for possible criminal activities. Even if the Web pages would still have been available through the IP address after the domain names were removed from operation, their availability would be substantially reduced. It was therefore not unnatural to regard the association of the domain names to Web sites with criminal content as the instrument for a criminal offence. The court ruled that the holder of a registered domain name has an exclusive right of use to an asset that may have financial value. The fact that the registration itself does not have any significance for rights that are already established, for example to a trademark, does not change this.The similarity that domain names have to other assets such as trademarks supports the premise that domain names can be seized. In addition to this comes the need to be able to stop a domain name from functioning to prevent criminal offences from continuing. Norid does not undertake any control of the content of Web sites; nor does it have any mandate to react to Web sites that may appear to violate the law; it is up to the police and the judicial system to do this.The court also confirmed that that domain names "are deemed to be liable to confiscation “ Click for case

Nordlandsposten.no - the name of a famous newspaper in Norway. Two newpapers merged and took a new name - forgetting to keep the domain names of the two old ones. The name of one of them was Nordlandsposten - and the popular name continued to be used by people even if the name was changed. The problem was that another guy registered the domain name and created a rival newspaper, and was actually a parasite on the reputation of the old one. Click for case