IP: President Clinton Signs Anti-Cybersqatting Bill Into Law

[Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>]

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>EDUCAUSE WASHINGTON UPDATE --- DECEMBER 3, 1999
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>***IN THIS ISSUE***
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>PRESIDENT CLINTON SIGNS ANTI-CYBERSQUATTING BILL INTO LAW
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>DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE UNVEILS NEW INTERNET ADDRESS SITE
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>***
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>  PRESIDENT CLINTON SIGNS ANTI-CYBERSQUATTING BILL INTO LAW
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>President Clinton this week signed into law a bill to prevent the bad faith
>registration and reselling of Internet domain names. "The Anticybersquatting
>Consumer Protection Act" would allow trademark owners to seek statutory
>damages against defendants found to have registered the domain name with
>"bad faith intent to profit from that mark".
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>While primarily associated with big-name private corporations,
>cybersquatting has also been a problem for the higher-education community.
>Some universities have had trouble with so-called lampoon Internet sites
>that seek to disparage the schools.  As part of the law's guidelines for
>determining whether cybersquatting took place, courts may consider the
>intent to tarnish or create confusion over the source of a trademark or
>Internet site. Other important provisions in the new law include:
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>Domain name registrar/registry liability:
>Domain name registrars and registries are not liable for monetary damages in
>domain name disputes unless they 1) fail to provide a court with requested
>documents necessary to establish the court's authority in determining the
>registration and use of a domain name; 2) suspended or modified the domain
>name without an express order of the court; or 3) willfully did not comply
>with a court order.
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>Study on abusive domain name registrations involving personal names:
>The new law directs the Commerce Department, in consultation with the Patent
>and Trademark Office and Federal Election Commission, to provide Congress
>within six months of enactment of the law guidelines for resolving disputes
>involving the domain name registration of personal names.
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>Critics of the new law have voiced concerns that it grants trademark owners
>overly broad protections and undermines efforts by ICANN to create an
>international uniform domain name dispute resolution policy.
>[<http://www.icann.org/udrp/udrp.htm>]
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>  DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE UNVEILS NEW INTERNET ADDRESS SITE
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>The Department of Commerce announced yesterday the release of a new version
>of the InterNIC website. [<http://www.internic.net/>] The new site will
>provide the public with information regarding domain name registration and a
>directory of .com, .org, and .net domain name registrars currently
>accredited by the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers
>(ICANN).
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>As part of an agreement reached on November 10, 1999
>[<http://www.icann.org/nsi/nsi-agreements.htm>], Network Solutions, Inc.
>will operate the InterNIC website on behalf of the Department of Commerce
>for the next six months, after which it will be transferred over to the
>Department of Commerce.
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>***
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>Written from EDUCAUSE'S Washington office, "The EDUCAUSE Washington Update"
>is a free service of EDUCAUSE, an international nonprofit association
>dedicated to transforming higher education through information technologies.
>
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