Recently the Beijing 2nd Intermediate People’s Court ruled that several domestic enterprises had illegally cybersquatted the domain names of the 11 world famous companies including Kentucky Co. Ltd, United Parcel Service, P & G, etc.
The Court found upon review that as of 1998 Guangzhou Yuejing Information Network Co. Ltd (Yuejing) and Beijing Chinanet Information Co. Ltd (Chinanet) had registered "kfc.com.cn" and "ups.com.cn" in China even though they do not own any right to these domain names. In addition, they registered "pepsi.com.cn", "cocacola.com.cn", "nike.com.cn" which are the same as or similar to other famous international brand names.
The Court viewed use of the domain names over the Internet as an exclusive right of network technology since they may bring commercial benefits for the owners doing business over the Internet due to its identification and function as trademarks. The court judged that the registration of the domain names by the two companies was willful and against the rule of credibility. As such, their acts constituted unfair competition and damaged the commercial benefits of the world famous companies. The Court held that Yuejing and Chinanet should remove their registration of all domain names which are similar to, or the same as the world famous brand names and
trademarks within 10 days from the effective date of the decision.
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