The Nizza Group, set up by Troy Jahaver and intellectual
property lawyer Frank Weyer, announced on 6th January that it had
been awarded a patent for a method and system of assigning
identical URL and e-mail addresses to members of a group – for
example, assigning John Doe of Widgets plc the web address
www.john.widgets.com and the e-mail address john@widgets.com.
Last week the Group announced that it had filed a lawsuit in the
US District Court for the Central District of California against
Network Solutions and Register.Com for infringement of that
patent.
The suit alleges that the companies are infringing the Nizza
Group's patent by offering registrations of domain names and e-mail
addresses under the .name top-level domain.
Registrations under the .name were, until recently, restricted
to the format www.john.doe.name, known as a third level domain.
However, last Friday the .name registry, the Global Name Registry,
announced the introduction of second level domain names such as
www.john.name.
The Global Name Registry is not itself named in the lawsuit
because, as Weyer explained to CNET News.com, "Network Solutions
and Register.com are the retailers that sell the domain names". He
continued, "GNR manages the registry, and they're also potential
infringers. Initially, we thought it would be easiest to proceed
against Network Solutions and Register.com."
The complaint seeks damages and an injunction against further
infringement by the two domain name registrars, but the Nizza Group
admitted that it is hoping for a settlement.
