[icann-eu] [FYI] German federal court decides on domain names

[Patrick Mayer <patrick.mayer@gmx.de>]

Thomas Roessler had the idea of informing you about today's top level
decision on german domain name law:

The german federal court has decided on so-called "generic" second
level domains. The judges declared general terms for usually
admissible, except in cases where the user might be confused about the
origin of a site. Even under the very strikt German competition law,
the user should still be considered intelligent enough to realize that
there is not only one web offer to any theme on the web, according to
the Court. Competitors of the owner of "mitwohnzentrale.de" had
complained that by using this general term, the owner was attracting
people to his website with a very general name, thus preventing
potential customers from looking for other opportunities for renting
appartments and thereby damaging the competitors' business.

In another judgment, the Court found that the registry for .de, DENIC,

   http://www.denic.de

has no duty to check domain name applications for violations of
trademarks or naming rights. Only in most obvious cases, especially if
a court already decided on the issue, the registry might be held
liable for violation of trademarks or names.

Kind regards,


Patrick Mayer

> ----- Forwarded message from Axel H Horns <horns@ipjur.com> -----

> From: "Axel H Horns" <horns@ipjur.com>
> Date: Thu, 17 May 2001 23:08:58 +0200
> Subject: [FYI] BGH: Gattungsbegriffe als Domainnamen frei

> http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/cp-17.05.01-000/

> ------------------------------ CUT ----------------------------_

> BGH: Gattungsbegriffe als Domainnamen frei

> Gattungsbegriffe sind als Domainnamen grundsaetzlich frei
verwendbar.
> Mit dieser Grundsatzentscheidung hat der Bundesgerichtshof (BGH) in
> Karlsruhe heute einer langen Serie von Streitigkeiten um Internet-
> Adressen ein Ende gesetzt.

[...]

> In einem weiteren Verfahren urteilte der Bundesgerichtshof heute,
> inwieweit die Registrierungsstelle fuer Domainnamen (DENIC) zur
> Pruefung von Rechten Dritter bei der Registrierung verpflichtet ist.

[...]

> (Tim Gerber)/ (cp/c't)

> ------------------------------ CUT ----------------------------_

--
RA Dr. Patrick Mayer                   patrick.mayer@gmx.de
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