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Protest Site Withstands Scrutiny under Anticybersquatting Legislation
On March 5, 2004, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan released its decision in the case of Lucas Nursery and Landscaping, Inc. v. Michelle Grosse. Grosse had registered the domain name "lucasnursery.com" and created a website detailing complaints she had with certain landscaping work performed for her by Lucas Nursery. Lucas Nursery's claim that Grosse's registration of "lucasnursery.com" violated the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act was originally dismissed on summary judgment. On appeal, the Court affirmed the original judgment based on the Court's finding that Grosse did not have the requisite "bad faith intent to profit" from use of the Lucas Nursery mark. The Court's finding was based on a number of factors, including that (i) the website was used for non-commercial purposes and (ii) Gross had not acquired any additional domain names (which would be indicative of an intent to sell such names to those entities whose trademarks were identical or similar or to exploit them for other uses).
For a copy of the decision, visit:
http://pacer.ca6.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/getopn.pl?OPINION=04a0071p.06