Business/Technology Editors
MEDFIELD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 22, 2000
Microsoft Requests Arbitration and Mediation for Expedia.nu with
World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)
.NU Domain Ltd (www.whats.nu) announced today that the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Arbitration and Mediation Center is administering the first domain name dispute of a Country Code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) ever. The dispute involves the domain name expedia.nu, which has been registered with the .NU Domain Ltd by Mr. Jet. Microsoft Corporation, which owns the trademark for the word expedia, has challenged Mr. Jet's registration of the domain name expedia.nu with .NU Domain Ltd.
"As a registrar of domain names for the international community, we believe it is critical for a neutral organization to mediate any trademark disputes," said J. William Semich, president and founder of .NU Domain Ltd, one of the fastest growing domain names on the Internet. "The WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center is recognized internationally as a leading institution providing administrative services to facilitate the resolution of international intellectual property and commercial disputes."
The WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center's domain name dispute resolution services give effect to the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), adopted by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) on August 26, 1999 and the Rules for Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy, approved by ICANN on October 24, 1999. The .NU Domain Ltd announced adoption of the UDRP for all .NU registrations in October of 1999 and recently retained the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center as one of its dispute resolution service providers.
"This case represents the first ccTLD domain name case filed with the Center," said Francis Gurry, Director of the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center. "As country-code administrators, .NU Domain clearly understands the importance of the Policy for reducing intellectual property infringements in the country code-top level domains. We hope that others will follow their lead in supporting the UDRP."
About .NU Domain Ltd
.NU Domain Ltd, a US-based private corporation, offers the only competitive alternative to Network Solutions Inc.'s. (NASDAQ:NSOL) ".com" domain name. The company is focused on serving end users and the small office/home office (SOHO) market, as well as Internet users in countries with restrictions on the domain name registration process.
The .NU domain is the fastest growing Top Level Domain (TLD) on the Internet. It has registered nearly 60,000 .NU domain names on the Internet during the past 24 months. .NU Domain Ltd also offers domain name parking services for customers who need to lock in a domain name but have no immediate plans to use it. Find further information about .NU and other services that the company provides at: www.nunames.nu
Current .NU customers are located in dozens of countries throughout the world, including Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Japan, Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, the United Kingdom, the Canary Islands, Spain, Brazil, New Zealand, Indonesia, Taiwan, Singapore, the Philippines and Australia, in addition to the United States. The list of registered .NU names ranges from addresses for large corporations such as the International Data Group (www.idg.nu) and the Coca-Cola Company (www.coca-cola.nu) to smaller organizations such as the Swedish floor ball team Sodra Karr (www. Sodra Karr.se.nu).
.NU Domain is a trademark of .NU Domain Ltd All others companies and products are trademarks of their respective companies.
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