“I’m relieved by this ruling,” said Lisa Migliore Black, founder of Migliore & Associates. “I’ve spent my whole career building a great reputation for my company, and to think that someone could misuse something as integral to me and my company as my name is unimaginable.”
LOCAL COMPANY WINS DOMAIN NAME DISPUTE AGAINST COMPETITOR
Arbitrator Finds Kentuckiana Reporters Acted in Bad Faith
LOUISVILLE, KY, October 24 – Migliore & Associates, LLC, a Kentucky-based court reporting firm along with its founder, Lisa Migliore Black, announced today that it recently won a domain name dispute against Kentuckiana Reporters, LLC, a competitor firm. It brought the claim in the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) alleging that Kentuckiana improperly registered the domain name “LisaMigliore.com” for the purposes of illegally diverting Internet traffic to the Kentuckiana Reporters website. Migliore argued that Kentuckiana had engaged in a pattern of bad faith by registering domain names consisting of the business names of other competitors or misspellings of their names.
In a written decision, the WIPO panel held that (i) the disputed domain name registered by Kentuckiana was identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which Migliore has rights; and (ii) Kentuckiana had no rights or legitimate interests in respect to the disputed domain name; and (iii) Kentuckiana registered the disputed domain name in bad faith and was using it in bad faith. The WIPO panel explained that Kentuckiana engaged in “classic cybersquatting” redirecting Internet users to their own website. The decision was based not only on the evidence Migliore submitted but also from the statements submitted by Kentuckiana. The WIPO panel ordered the transfer of the domain name.
“I’m relieved by this ruling,” said Lisa Migliore Black, founder of Migliore & Associates. “I’ve spent my whole career building a great reputation for my company, and to think that someone could misuse something as integral to me and my company as my name is unimaginable.”
In 2011, trademark holders filed a record 2,764 cybersquatting cases covering 4,781 domain names with the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center, according to WIPO. This is an increase of 2.5% and 9.4% over the previous highest levels in 2010 and 2009, respectively.
About WIPO
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is one of the 17 specialized agencies of the United Nations. WIPO was created in 1967 “to encourage creative activity, to promote the protection of intellectual property throughout the world,” according to its preamble. WIPO currently has 185 member states, administers 24 international treaties, and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.
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