Mr Nissan registered nissan.com in 1994 as a home page for his
computer hardware company, Nissan Computer. He also registered
nissan.net in 1996, for a small ISP that he founded.
Nissan Motors sued him in 1999, claiming that the word Nissan is
its registered trade mark and therefore the company has the
exclusive right to use the name Nissan by itself.
The entrepreneur, an Israeli immigrant, rejected the car
company’s allegations arguing that Nissan is his family name and
also the name of a month in Hebrew and Arabic. Uzi Nissan also
pointed out that the Japanese auto giant already owns and can use
the domain name nissanmotors.com.
A federal judge in Los Angeles has ruled that, although Uzi
Nissan “is not a cybersquatter”, he altered his web sites to add
advertisements and links to on-line car buying sites. The judge
also found that the entrepreneur was “clearly capitalising” from
the traffic that was coming to web sites in search of Nissan
Motors.
The Associated Press reports that Nissan Motors has registered
the domain nissancomputer.com and has offered to give it to Uzi
Nissan if he is ordered to return his domain names to the car
company.
The US District Judge Dean D. Pregerson is expected to decide by
November whether the domains in dispute should be returned to
Nissan Motors.
