Nominet wins judicial review case, Cohen to continue fight for justice |
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Sat, 06 Aug 2005 00:35
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LONDON - There was some relief for Apple Computers as the High Court squashed an application for a judicial review against the UK domain name registry organization, Nominet. The dispute had risen over the ownership of the domain name www.itunes.co.uk.
Benjamin Cohen, an Internet entrepreneur had claimed that Nominet had no authority o issue domain names after it was found that Mr., Cohen who had registered the said domain name in November 2000 was asked to let go of it since it was similar to Apple's famous online music store, iTunes.com, which debuted three years after Cohen got his domain name.
Nominet had ruled that Cohen should hand over his domain name to Apple in March this year. Refusing to do so, Cohen had sought a judicial review challenging Nominet's authority. Today's ruling effectively douses all his hopes.
| The judgment said "that, by associating the domain name with Napster (a competitor of Apple Computers Inc), and that by offering to sell the domain name for sums far in excess of its original costs, the registration of the domain name was abusive." However, Mr. Cohen has vowed to continue to fight for justice, "CyberBritain (Cohen's holding company) is considering its options together with its legal team. It is currently reviewing the decision and is strongly considering making an application for an oral hearing," he said in a statement.
Expressing happiness at having got the ruling in their favor, Edward Phillips, Nominet's solicitor, said, "I am pleased that the judge has rejected Mr. Cohen's case at the first possible opportunity, which leaves no doubt that it was without merit. We will now be looking at recovering our costs of defending this unnecessary action." CyberBritain responded by saying that if an oral hearing were to be conducted, "the inherent unfairness of Nominet's dispute resolution service becomes apparent."
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