Google wins cybersquatting case against Indian

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Internet search giant Google has won a cybersquatting case at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) against an Indian who had tried to block the domain name 'googblog.com', media reports said today.

As a result the WIPO has ordered Herit Shah, the holder of the domain to transfer the rights of the domain to Google, according to the information available with the WIPO, said reports.

Google has alleged that the domain www.googblog.com was similar to its trademark Google and Blogger.

Goog Blog, which has gone offline owing to the legal dispute, was a the web 2.0 portal for all the latest tech news, windows guide, mp3 downloads, funny stuff, greetings, lyrics and everything, according to reports. "Googblog.com is temporarily down due to some legal conflicts. Check back soon for the updates," says the message in the site.

Google had challenged the registering of domain name 'googblog.com' by Shah at WIPO stating that it was confusingly similar to its trademark on which the company has rights, says a PTI report.

Shah had registered the domain name in September 2008 and Google approached WIPO on March 26 against this, according to WIPO web site. The decision on the case was taken on May 15.

Cybersquatting is an illegal activity of registering, trafficking in, or using a domain name with bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else, according to US federal law.

According to WIPO, a specialized agency of the United Nations for developing a balanced and accessible international system in the field of intellectual property rights, allegations of cyber squatting by trademark holders continued to rise in 2008.

The organization said in 2008, a record 2,329 complaints were filed under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), a quick and cost-effective dispute resolution procedure administered by the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center. This represented an 8 per cent increase over 2007 in the number of generic and country code Top Level Domain disputes handled by it.