Danish Court Orders Spanish Site Blocked Because It Uses Trademarked English Word 'Home' As Part Of Its Name
from the global-village dept
Daft trademarking stories are common enough, but it's always fun to come across new variations on the theme. Netzpolitik points us to this story from Denmark, where a Spanish-owned property site called HomelifeSpain.com ran into trouble because the word "home" was trademarked in Denmark by the Danish property site home.dk. This resulted in the rather incredible remedy of the website itself being banned entirely. As Netzpolitik notes, this is classic function creep: such web blocks were introduced to fight -- you guessed it -- child pornography, and yet here they are being applied in the rather less serious matter of trademark infringement.
Moreover, it's hard to see why such a common word as "home" was allowed as a trademark in the first place. It's true it's in English, rather than Danish, but even so, trademark examiners would surely have known that granting one company an exclusive monopoly of the common English word "home" in Denmark for certain domains was bound to cause problems somewhere down the line, given the globalized nature of business today. The fact that a Spanish company is now being blocked there because of a Danish trademark granted on an English word proves the point nicely.
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Filed Under: blocking, censorship, denmark, home, trademark
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Seriously though why should one company have a monopoly on such a common word as home ? They could probably block a good number of other websites on this basis. What next - Trademark a letter, say "i" - oh wait someone already tried that.
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Because the majority of the world believes abstract concepts and ideas can be owned and protected, that's why.
It's getting worse because courts are losing sight of the fact that trademarks exist (unlike copyright and patents) to protect consumers, not corporate brands.
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Would statutory damages be awarded for the misuse?
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Way to weaken the block, guys
Not to mention that it adds pressure for removing the ability to block itself. Opponents can now point to this example (and unfortunately many more to come) as one more reason the ability to block should not exist at all.
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Re: Way to weaken the block, guys
Down with the Copyright Assholes !
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Saved the children
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Please check if it was the Eu and not the Danish goverment
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I am a bit baffled that it is happening with a .com site. It is standard procedure that .dk domains are getting stolen because of a misguided corrupt favouritism for large companies compared to private people and small companies.
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Usual critics at the time "naw, it won't be abused, it'll be used exactly for that, to prevent (!!!) child molesting"
Right. Meanwhile child pornography runs unfettered and well under the rug.
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I think the chain fell off already at that point. Home is far too short, too common and too relevant a term for the sector to hold uses of it as part of other names as infringement. The less gifted judge granting that judgement should be crucified by legal scholars on that ground alone.
Now HomeinSpain did not follow the injunction from that case and the block is therefore grounded in the continued trademark infringement. If the block is fair or not is up for discussion given the "crime" being committed by continuing the business.
It is also worth mentioning that it is only Telenor having gotten the injunction. Telenor is a mobile provider first and an ISP second. Why they were chosen as target in the case is pretty suspicious. No DNS in Denmark will allow a block without an injunction.
DNS-blocking is in a downward spiral in Denmark politically. Only child porn is a sanctioned use from the political majoritys point of view. The child porn blocking is created in cooperation with "Red Barnet" - "Save the child". That it is extremely ineffective has been shown before by a group of it-professionals calling the siteowners and ISPs of the DNS-blocked sites. Most of them didn't even know that a block was in effect and most of the situations were resolved withing a fourth night (Some sites were closed, others removed the problematic pictures).
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The UK has....
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Re: The UK has....
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We need more tech-aware justice systems in the world
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Re: We need more tech-aware justice systems in the world
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Playstation Home�
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Re: Playstation Home�
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(You know the world's in a bad way when that's the nicest thing you can say about the people running it...)
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What's next, oxygen?
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http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120902/20364620255/hbo-hooks-up-nordic-cord-cutters-offe rs-standalone-streaming-service.shtml
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What about
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It's a word in finnish too..
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Site is not blocked.
I am from Denmark and this site has not been blocked with the filter. If it had, I do believe that all ISP's would have blocked it. My ISP is the biggest in the country so either this story is made up or the site has been unblocked again.
I would like to say though, that the filter is complete BS. Lots of so called dangerous sites has been added to, what previously was a child pornography filter, but there are many sites caught in it that really don't belong.
Like other places in the world, this filter has been turned into a travesty that disguises itself as "protection".
When that mask is peeled off, it just shows itself as a government financed weapon for businesses to use.
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Re: Site is not blocked.
TDC was not on the recieving end of the injunction. Telenor was. Therefore the homeinspain site can still be accessed by you untill TDC decides to join the block, which is likely to happen within half a year given their history! Heck, my ISP still doesn't block grooveshark.com!
As for the blocking: Most of the uses against pharmacies and poker-sites are government enacted.
When it comes to IPR-infringement we are more or less talking civil purposes. In case of IPR-infringement it is a civil court injunction and a "temporary" at that.
Remember that it is "only" a DNS-block. The ISPs can be ordered to use DPI if it is deemed necessary. Already today the company 3 has issued a DPI-block of Grooveshark and that is the way the civil court injunctions are likely to be interpreted in the future. So far the lack of DPI has been because of a "reasonable cost for ISP" decission. As DPI gets cheaper and more automated, that reasoning is dying and we are in for a world of private censorship unless we move to encrypted traffic, like they do in France.
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allofmp3.com,mp3sparks.com,thepiratebay.org,grooveshark.com,thepiratebay.se,homelifespain.com. Yeah welcome to Denmark.
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Thats Denmark
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