Wednesday, September 5, 2001

Oxford Wins Domain-Name Case Against Man Named 'Oxford University' By DAVID COHEN Oxford, England The University of Oxford has won a domain-name case against an Australian man who both adopted the famous British institution's name and used it to register his own personal Web site. The World Intellectual Property Organization ruled last week that the defendant, known alternately as "Dr. Seagle" and "Oxford University," must surrender to the university his rights to use the domain name www.university-of-oxford.com. The university's actual Web-site address is www.ox.ac.uk, although it also owns several variants on the name, including: www.oxford-university.co.uk, www.oxford-university.net, and www.oxforduniversity.net. Although the university makes no exclusive claim to the title "Oxford," something it shares with this English township in which its 39 constituent colleges are located, it says it is committed to pursuing cases against others who use the word in connection with British higher education. The World Intellectual Property Organization, a specialized agency of the United Nations system of organizations, has among its functions a mandate to administer intellectual-property matters relating to 21 treaties on intellectual-property rights and recognized by all U.N. member states. A lawyer for the university had argued that Mr. University, whom he described as a cybersquatter, had no legitimate case for using his chosen domain name, which itself could only "waste time, effort and money on a useless search" for Internet users in need of online information about the university. The disputed site had contained what the university described as "personal writings," a number of them highly critical of the institution. The arbitrator for the intellectual-property organization agreed with the university, and ruled against the defendant. The site has since been removed from the Web. Mr. University, described in the court documents as being a resident of the Australian state of New South Wales, did not contest the findings. Earlier, however, as part of a personal message posted on his site concerning the university's actions, he had written, "Trying to obtain things by threats -- which is the gist of their (so far rebuffed) 'legal' (i.e. bullying) attack on me has made me far from conducive to giving them anything -- particularly undeserved respect." He could not be reached this week for further comment. "These types of cases are on the increase right now, which I suppose says something about the all-pervasive nature of the Web," David Holmes, the university's registrar, said Monday in an interview at his office at Oxford. "On the other hand," Mr. Holmes added, "the Web is also a highly useful tool for keeping track of these things. Which is why this case, like many others, was brought to our attention very quickly, allowing us to act on it very quickly as well." Background articles from The Chronicle: Plan for Domain Suffixes Has Colleges Girding for Trademark Fights (8/4/2000) Law Professors Create Group to Arbitrate Disputes Over Domain Names (1/28/2000) Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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